Volume 1 Episode 10 - Every Exit Is an Entrance
by Aintzane
Summary: Suspicion and weariness in Volentia's crew grow stronger even after they escape from Imudon. While she's trying to find the key to her Magos's mysteries, the old enemies keep pursuing her. Imudon is desperate to evade his doom after the banishment, and their conflict is to come to a showdown.
1. Prologue

Prologue

Perfectly cleaned tools put in their places on tall racks and shelves, bottles and vials sorted by colour, volume and toxicity. Master Haemonculus Cymhellol checked his laboratory in detail after every working day. No other savant, let alone his wrack apprentices, could ever dare to step away from the rules he'd imposed on his Coven of the Incisive when his followers, a squalid bunch of survivors, settled in this part of the Dark City. Most of his colleagues grew extravagant and even eccentric as centuries passed by, but Cymhellol was still holding on to his principles, old age making him grow even more paranoid and obsessed with compulsive daily routine.

He took another look of an unfinished pain engine at the back wall and sprouting poison lilies in rectangular boxes under a row of purple lamps powered by the training workshop upstairs. He was quite short of captives recently, and the haemacolytes had yet to hone their technique, so the lilies grew slower than he expected. Cymhellol took a vial of finely distilled venom of a hundred rare beasts mixed exactly in his favourite proportion and closed his eyes hovering over the floor, trying to relax with the exquisite sounds of screams from adjoining laboratories. He felt delighted to finally have a rest after a few days of concentrated hard work. With a shadow of a smile he gave the empty vial to a wrack and headed to his private quarters to replenish his strength.

'I am sorry, Master,' the wrack bent his knee taking the vial. 'The Beggar Archon has arrived to see Your Excellence.'

Cymhellol's good mood vanished. He crossed his lean arms on his chest, not even bothering to hide his displeasure. Ymgarth Llygoden, the pretentious but ineffective ruler of the once powerful Kabal of the Poisoned Rose, had been a burden the haemonculus still cared for only because the archon's main rival had pledged for the coven led by his personal enemy from before the Fall. The Beggar Archon's visits were even more frequent now as his management of the Kabal was about to collapse.

'Such an honour to receive you in my modest laboratory, Archon,' Cymhellol said dryly. 'I hope the visit has something to do with the latest party of rose cuttings.'

'I was quite pleased with the black ones, Master Haemonculus, the incomparably delicious agony they deliver,' Llygoden's shrill voice made Cymhellol wince. 'I'm wearing all black nowadays, so I enjoyed inserting a rose...'

'I meant another thing. We've been discussing the matter since the very day you needed the assistance of the coven to dethrone your mother. It might sound impolite, but my eyes and ears reported me a while ago your Kabal had fallen on hard times. I'm keeping constant records of all sales and debts since my first day here. I've supplied you with so many seedlings and cuttings they'd be enough to make a garden the size of a maiden world. I've been treating your wounds for all the years of your rule, after your raids, after your reckless swims in the Oceanarium. I've tamed a mandrake for your service.'

'You know what's happening in the city,' Llygoden''s tone got nagging. 'There're hardly any perspectives at all, as we're surrounded by the most horribly mindless imbeciles. I'm feeling out of place among the vain, plain individuals of my stagnant Kabal.'

None of the roses of Llygoden's famous garden could be half as toxic as his constant whining. Cymhellol found himself thinking about the archon's mother with some approval. She had been rash and unreliable but with an ally as worthless as her son the coven was likely to lose most of its profitable clients. Maybe he should have agreed to her proposition of making a grotesque out of her rebellious son.

'I need at least minimum gratitude for my devoted work, Archon. You will try to poison me instead like half a year ago when I reminded you of the debt but your experience is not enough to deal me even the slightest damage.'

'I'm actually suggesting sharing bountiful loot of an extraordinary venture.' Llygoden pursed his pierced lips painted black. 'A croneworld full of unspoken treasures from the great millennia of the Empire.'

'The Webway around them is tainted and dangerous. I'm not going to waste my precious engines.'

'Something much better. Meddwyn and her wyches captured a corsair ship during their latest slave-raid. Among other costly items there was a piece of a relic map. Access to one of the fabled intersection worlds. If we get there, we have a chance to visit a few croneworlds in no time and return back. It's located in a relatively quiet area of space.'

'I'll give it a thought.' Cymhellol nodded. 'Let's discuss that after the engine is finished.'

The proposition sounded lucrative, so Cymhellol concocted a raid plan after Llygoden had left and sent a scourge to inform the newest customers that the fabrication would be postponed for a few days. But, as all denizens of Commorragh, Cymhellol had no illusions about the archon's eagerness to leave him a decent share.

'Prepare a portion of antidote for the statue number forty,' he ordered the wrack. 'Just in case.'


	2. I

We got stuck in the Abilene sub-sector for longer than planned. Against the earlier expectations, even the joint forces of two companies of the Blood Angels and ten Guard regiments weren't enough to stop the advancing fleet of the Panther and his allied traitor and renegade warbands. Furious warp storms shook whole system clusters, astropathic messages were delivered days if not weeks after they'd been despatched.

Penniless and without any connection to the headquarters, we were sailing through the troubled Immaterium aboard the Quiet Vigil, the freshly-built Black Ship of Silent Judge Pyralis Ceropsina and her Excruciatus cadre. Their timely intervention had let me escape the gruesome fate of getting sacrificed in my nemesis' Chaotic shrine. I was doing my best to get rid of the strain but the heartbreaking images from Angel's visions still haunted me and made me wake up in the middle of the night in tears. Thanks to Imudon's unexpected magnanimity, at least the flesh wounds of the previous venture didn't disturb me anymore.

My acolytes save Fluffster were withdrawn and thoughtful, not much of a company during the void voyage unlike. Sister had been hit by the return of her worst nightmare when she got face to face with her vilest enemy. Angel was trying to overcome the first serious outburst of the Black Rage, not so scary by itself but a harbinger of madness yet to come. Yet his affection for me was even warmer and deeper than before since I'd shared his mortifying flashbacks. Honestly, I was delighted to hear less of whining and more of approval.

The Abilene campaign was way more fruitful for the cadre than their previous tithe-collecting tour as they'd already eradicated about ten dangerous cults serving the Black Legion, snatched a party of teenage psykers of high ability from a slaver captain, destroyed a whole collection of tainted weaponry smuggled by a seemingly honest rogue trader.

'He's just said the rest is still hidden at the bottom of a corn storage in one of his mansions.' Pyralis made a few angry signs entering the mess-room after the first interrogation of the smuggler, and Fluffster translated the remark. 'He still has enough insolence to mock me telling the customer will pick it up before we get there. He hasn't got yet that things are serious.'

'The Pirate King is famous for his generosity,' Fluffster said with a sigh. 'Many mindless youths in these lands want to try the forbidden fruit, and the fairer half of them are jumping into the Panther's bed hoping to become a long-term concubine.'

'That's because children need proper strict upbringing. They see it as an amusing game till they're eaten by a daemon or find themselves in a prison cell with a certain perspective of execution. I bet tomorrow this cheeky young man will cry as a baby down on his knees begging to call his parents. They'll reconsider their manner of raising children after they get an official notification that their beloved spoiled son has been turned into a sewage servitor.'

The solemn epithet of "ever-silent" was only remotely applicable to the Silent Judge as she used her free time to discuss the fallen younger generations with Fluffster in ThoughtMark. She recalled the dubious past of Plodia Interpunctella and expressed her sympathy for Ephestia who had to live with her mother's reputation, condemned corrupted Inquisitors who took bribes from officials and merchants to leave their psyker children unregistered, told many stories of potent witches who had managed to keep entire networks of illegal psykers on the most peaceful planets.

She didn't ask me any questions about my psychic trainings but was quite interested in my visions and my previous contacts with Imudon. The horrible shrine was a matter of concern, she said, as there'd been a few case of escaped captives who discovered strange abilities after an attempted sacrifice there. The sign, as the former shipmistress had called it. Some hideous transformation that kept the appearance and visible personality but altered the soul beyond recognition. None of those with the sign had been arrested as they disappeared once authorities turned attention to them.

I was delighted to hear news about the psyker teens I'd met on Auriglobus. They were all currently studying on Terra except for Taphius who'd been taken as a future Librarian by the sinister Carcharodons in exchange for safe passage through a war-ridden sector after the cadre had left the outpost. Scalaria was doing especially well, her grievous injury at the hands of the Iron Seer only enhancing her prodigious capability, so she was expected to start working in a void-ship astropathic choir next year. Intha who had acted as an interpreter of the Silent Sisters' sign language was going to join the crew of a Black Ship to watch over the recruits and their basic training. The others were yet to choose their occupation, and I hoped to recruit one of them on the return to Uebotia.

The quietude of the Black Ship provided long-sought rest for my mind tormented by nightmares and growing whispers of the warp. I spent many calm hours in absolute psychic silence of a specially protected cell reading, doing needlework or just sleeping without any disturbing visions. There were about ten more standard days to reach the capital where I planned to report to Fungata and finally get my wages to prepare for the next mission. Both the owl and our armaments needed repairs, our ammo stock was almost down, and the last portion of instant noodles had been eaten a week ago.

On that the evening I left the room to drop in to the astropaths' quarters to check my mailbox before dinner. To my surprise, when I approached the doors, I heard loud voices arguing in the usually quiet place. One of them belonged to Fluffster, the other one, a bass male voice, spoke in curt harsh phrases reminiscent of seasoned soldiers. Psychic tension of the conversation could be felt even out of the enclosed quarters, the cricetid had probably summoned all trained psykers on the ship to participate in the choir and let the astropaths break through the stormy tides of the warp.

I kept distance to avoid disrupting the connection but close enough to hear the details. It was utterly puzzling what unexpected problem could have forced my companion to organize such a complicated procedure. Considering other peculiarities of Fluffster's behaviour and connections, I had to keep an eye on his machinations behind my back.

'Just don't hurry,' he tried to pacify his interlocutor. 'Like all commanders, you're trying to prepare for the past wars.'

'I'm older than you,' the other man snarled back. 'I've seen the results of such ventures. He won't choose you, but what about me, or Periophtalmus, or Astronotus? The abyss stares back.'

'There're no viable proofs. I'll try to find it out accurately when already on the station.'

'I warned you that was a bad idea from the very beginning. A dormant bomb that can explode every second. The captivity got the whole operation on the verge of failure.'

'Well, in this shape...'

'Not you. She was face to face with the abomination in your absence. You've been allowed to escape.'

I held my breath catching every word from the room. The captivity they were discussing was either the bleak days on Medrengard, the flight aboard Lucia's hijacked ship or the terrifying confinement in the Chaotic shrine. I wondered who was the other man so aware of my private business. Probably not an Inquisitor but familiar with Astronotus. Likely a tech-priest if the matter was the Lost Queen, a thing of any interest for the Mechanicus. I was more than sure that from now on I should be less open with Fluffster but act as friendly as before so that he didn't notice anything. I doubted there was any sense of sharing my suspicions with my retinue as I didn't need conflicts in the close-knit company. The future days would provide more information for my own private investigation.

'But I've got so many details we can act in no time. What about manpower? You told me last time you'd sent all due requests.'

'Valoris sends out the Dread Host, all three. Formosa, a strike force.'

'What about the unblemished?'

'Two full companies.'

'We're quite short anyway. It has grown since the previous reconnaissance, and still growing at shocking speed. Something is about to start.'

'That's why you shouldn't have got yourself mixed up in this dirty business. When he'll learn about the plan, we'll get in trouble.'

'I'll do my best to keep it in secret.'

'And I'll act without asking you at the slightest suspicion.'

It looked like they were planning a massive operation against a stronghold like Medrengard, so even some powerful detachments and two Space Marine companies were too few. I didn't know who Valoris and Formosa were but I hoped I'd check the names on Uebotia. They could turn out not just generals but Chaos warlords, the very name of Dread Host sounded like a traitor warband. The expression 'dirty business' didn't mean anything harmless as well. But as long as the intrigue isn't targeting me directly, I'd better stay aside, out of the mess.

The connection was severed. I ran a few steps back and hid behind a corner, in a place protected from psychic interference. Fluffster and a few supporting psykers left the room and headed to the bridge to have dinner. I got out of my hideout and walked to the doors, as if nothing had happened.

'Lady Volentia,' the chief astropath addressed me anxiously. 'I'm afraid your presence has been detected to be reported to Lord Crinitus. But as you bear the rosette, I felt obliged to warn you in advance.'

'Thank you, sir, you're a devoted servant to the Emperor.' I smiled with approval, though my blood ran cold. 'Has Lord Crinitus told you the name of the person he was speaking to?'

'Not at all, m'lady. Only the coordinates.'

'Do you happen to know anything about who he is?' If Fluffster had intended to spy on me, I had to do the same.

'A Magos from your retinue, and quite an important person.'

'You don't have reasons to take his orders into consideration above mine,' I said harshly. 'The Inquisition is meant to have superior authority even over the highest officials. Even people of my own team can be covert heretics.'

'He will notice your presence by auspex logs.'

'You may send a message to the ship enginseers in my name. Only another Inquisitor can question an Inquisitor's actions.'

'I will do as you order, m'lady.'

'The Emperor will remember your faithful service, sir. Now I'd like to see my mail inbox.'

There was but a single letter about some bureaucratic bullshit for the full mailing list of the Conclave. I asked the astropath to upload the attached files to my dataslate but decided to postpone the full report till the arrival. Fluffster behaved exactly the same as usual at dinner, interpreting the Silent Judge's grumpy monologues and grumbling about the world going to the dogs. The other Questorae were mostly taciturn, even Aletes, still allowed to talk during her training was seldom inclined to participate in the conversation. I shared a story or told a joke from time to time to keep to my habitual manners.

I didn't manage to learn anything new on the next day. Fluffster didn't visit neither the astropaths nor the enginseers spending all time in his own secluded cell. He didn't ask me any questions and had hardly noticed anything at all. Four more days, and we'll be in the capital to board a proper inquisitorial vessel.

In a day, when I went to the astropaths' place again, the chief astropath called me to his desk with a quite enthusiastic look.

'I'm always glad to serve the Throne. News for your latest case, m'lady.'

'My Magos has been here today, hasn't he?'

'Not only been. He's got a lengthy message with blocked sender coordinates. I've secretly saved a copy especially for you.'

'You'll be rewarded when we reach the capital,' I said cheerfully.

'But I have to warn you, the letter is encoded in quite a specific way, I haven't encountered the code before and cannot assist you in reading the contents.'

'The Inquisition has its own ways of unravelling even the most tricky mysteries,' I ensured him. 'Just keep reporting any further actions.'

I downloaded the message copy to study it in my quarters afterwards. I didn't dare to forward it to Fungata because she'd kick up a public stink, and I'd be thrown under the bus as a suspicious disciple of a rogue who was lucky to have died before getting accused of heresy. There were Corydoras and Plodia but they had a tight connection with Fluffster and his circle through Peachy, another cricetid. Astronotus was a close acquaintance of the untrustworthy Magos as well. What if I stumbled upon a massive heretic network of high officials and Inquisitors like the Horusians mentioned by Imudon? Medrengard was a valuable source of tainted weaponry if only they weren't going to break through the Warsmith citadels to the dark heart of the daemon forge where the Lord of Iron resided in his corrupted form.

'I have a buddy in this sub-sector,' I recalled an only independent man of the Ordos I'd encountered nearby. 'Please send a message to Inquisitor Lord Kryptopterus, head of the local Ordo Xenos Conclave. Ask him whether he knows anyone under the names of Formosa and Valoris. I hope he's informed about a few more things apart from his alien business.'

On the return I locked my door and opened the letter. The cipher was truly puzzling as none of more than a thousand utilities of my special data folder didn't work. Neither did my inquisitorial password. If Kryptopterus gets interested in the case, I might send him an example to try with his own means. I made a draft of a report summing up all dubious moments of Fluffster's work I'd noticed during the previous investigations. An overly wide circle of acquaintances in the upper echelon. A long record of xeno contacts. Tech-priests consorting with the Necrons weren't too rare as entire groups within the Machine Cult viewed the robotic race as the supreme embodiment of mechanical power and a symbol of final victory over the weakness of flesh. That might also be of interest to Kryptopterus. Quite friendly communication with Warsmith Limax. Excessive awareness of matters not even remotely connected to his field of study.

A knock on the door. I turned off the dataslate and approached the door.

'Who's there?'

'That's me, Fluffster. Sorry for disturbing you but I have something to tell you.'

Struggling with a sudden bout of fear, I deactivated the lock. The cricetid didn't look aggressive or even reserved. He sat down in one of the armchairs scratching his side.

'We won't go to the capital right now. I'll inform Platydoras himself after dinner. The navigator has already altered course.'

'What's going on? A serious warp storm or we're close to a battleground area?' I pretended to know nothing about the cryptic message.

'Lady Cichlasoma needs help from other Inquisitors on the borderline Malleus outpost of Lathyrus.'

'But there's been no requests in my inbox.'

'The request was broadcasted over the surrounding clusters to be heard by all local astropaths. We're the only team available.'

'We're out of money. I'm subject to my own Ordo.' I was determined to stay away from all the shady machinations.

'You know about the Malleus Remit. The Lords Malleus have the right to demand the aid of any other organisation in case of emergency. The Sisters are also obliged to counter any daemonic menace.'

The story must be a quickly concocted lie as the astropath should have warned me about the unexpected circumstances. Lords Malleus were respected for standing at the forefront of fending off the vilest enemies of Mankind but prolonged contacts with all kinds of taint often led to corrupting whole operative groups.

'Are we planning to stay there for long?'

'Hard to predict. Major threats of massive incursion, certain harbingers of a Black Crusade to start in about a year or less.'

As we were drifting back to the sector border, I continued visiting the psykers till the chief astropath didn't show me the answer in my inbox. 'As far as I'm concerned, Captain-General Trajann Valoris is the Chief Custodian, Knight-Commander Rhodophaea Formosa is the head of the Silent Sisterhood. Wonder why you ask the question to one of Ordo Xenos.' Puzzled even more than before, I squeezed my temples pondering over a neutral reply.

'Thank you for a timely answer, sir. There's been an urgent need to look up a few names for a report but Uebotia is currently unavailable from my location because of violent warp storms around the sub-sector.'

I wasn't sure anymore whether to send him a sample of the cipher. If the names were real, not coded nicknames for some traitor ringleaders, Fluffster was engaged in bigger business I could have imagined. The best way to act was to do my job just taking care so as not to get crushed by the wheel of history. Anyway, I was a witch-hunter, not a statesperson or a general.

Lathyrus was a void construct older than the Imperium, a fortified station orbiting a barren rock world of an ancient red giant. The system had been inhabited by xenos before the human race ever appeared on Old Terra, but nothing was left of their heritage save a few mysterious carvings on the lifeless surface of the planet and its two crumbling moons. There should have been more worlds in the system but the cooling sun had swallowed them millions of years ago.

There was a neverending haunting presence of the Immaterium leaking into the physical realm through small but numerous rifts in the veil between the two worlds. Anxious but promising, the way a sailor feels on the ocean shore, ready to set foot on the deck. I pressed to the oculus glass on the bridge, looking out with my psyker-sight. Colourful strands of unimaginable hues weaved together, wave after wave surged upon the dead world and the colossal ship of shining metal anchored at the long-abandoned strand.

The Quiet Vigil was slowly descending to the orbital docks, and the growing tide parted before the coal-black prow. Something a Hereticus operative doesn't happen to see often, if at all. I couldn't but think about the days of the Great Crusade when humanity grew bold enough to leave squalid shelters and embark to the stars again, led by Him and His miraculous sons.

'There were days when people didn't fear to step forward decisively and make a statement. They were neither scared fugitives nor desperate paranoids ready for their last stand,' Fluffster seemed to overhear my thoughts. 'The time of strong-willed pioneers is over. The same happened to Mankind after the Dark Age of Technology when people were as stupidly fearless as a child running away from home. Warp devours and corrupts those who overlook the danger.'

'There's something utterly wrong in the abrupt ending of the Crusade,' I objected. 'When the One Whose only name repels Chaos suddenly gets a mortal wound from His own creation.'

Fluffster shook his head but replied nothing. Pyralis and her Questorae summoned all the crew and passengers to the boarding modules to get to the station while outpost tech-priests were watching over the docking.

When we left the modules and walked out of the docks to the main decks, a whole delegation of the locals had arrived to meet us. I was surprised to see Lady Cichlasoma at the head of the group, clad in her black Vratine armour, flanked by two Grey Knights and surrounded by a formidable retinue of armed acolytes and storm troopers. She approached us, and I flinched at the touch of her null field she didn't bother to muffle even out of combat.

'You're welcome, dear Lord Crinitus.' She shook Fluffster's paws with the most affection she was able to express. 'Unfortunately, Lord Cynops couldn't leave the Cadian sector to meet you. You may speak to him later if you wish.'

Cynops, the man who had overseen the destruction of the Casbah. He must be a big dog of such scale the modest person who was his formal superior didn't get that much respect and attention. Cichlasoma bowed her head at me, and I wasn't much sorry that the pariah didn't come closer.

'Nice to meet you again, Miss Volentia. Sorry for not shaking hands, I don't want you to say goodbye to your lunch like at our first meeting. Hope you don't mind we summoned you to our forlorn citadel in the middle of almost nowhere.'

A hooded figure, supported by an intricate metal exoskeleton with a tangle of cables, got from behind the backs of the fighters and headed to me. With both joy and sympathy I took the warpseer's frail hand trying not to hurt her broken bones that still hadn't healed since the day when the foul sorcery dissolved. Every movement resonated with pain in her aura but she had a stiff upper lip as she'd used to.

'Glad to see you alive. I don't stay out of job here, as you see. A chance to do at least something useful while I'm still alive. Look.' Lucia pulled up her hood and showed me her peaked but clean face. 'They've removed the nasty sigils. I don't belong to the bastard anymore. I'll spit in his mug when he comes for me.'

'I pray for you and the souls of your crew every day.'

'Only He can save even vile sinners like me.' She nodded sadly. 'Let me see you all through the Librarian's eyes.'

She stepped back slowly, and one of the Grey Knights gave out his hand for she could lean on his gauntlet. Angel hurried to support her from the other side.

'Lucia is observing the tides daily,' said Cichlasoma. 'More and more sinister visions emerge from the depths of the Immaterium. The passage is of great value for the Despoiler's army, and we expect the first assault to come in days. Lady Judge, your assistance will be priceless as separate agents of the Great Enemy can sneak in through the Door as well.'

A shuttle brought us to the Obsidian Tower, secluded psyker quarters in the top spire basked in the crimson radiance of the dying sun. An hour remaining till the planned war council, I walked up to the very summit, a transparent chamber of psyonic crystal, and sat before the sparkling wall staring at the ever-shifting aether currents as if they could show answers for my unspoken questions.


	3. II

The few dwellers of Lathyrus were in full combat readiness as more and more disturbing news arrived from Cadia and nearby sectors were already ravaged by numerous traitor warbands and hordes of daemons summoned by both sorcery and slaughter. We learned from Cichlasoma that Lathyrus, unlike the other parts of the sector, had suffered a crushing attack during the previous Black Crusade, and only a great army of twenty Guard regiments, five Space Marine Chapters and a secretly dispatched Shield-Host of the Custodes could have prevented the system from falling into the enemy hands.

A place of old magic, it was ideal for psyker concentration and catching signs of future in the roiling aether waves, but it had another landmark of real value for the heretics. Probably existing since the first xenos settled there, a portal of pre-human unknown technology connected the station to a mysterious planetoid called an 'intersection world' by the Aeldari, a place that allowed access to a few other planets once valuable for their ancestors. It appeared here and there seemingly by random, shifting its location once it was used or, if idle, after varying periods of time. Only capable psykers could predict the opening and locate the portal in the complicated maze of modules, decks and passages.

Next morning after the arrival I woke up strangely overwhelmed as a derelict sailor looking for the first time at stranger tides. When I pulled aside the window blinds, red sunlight flooded the room, the bloated orb shining as a piece of incandescent metal against the black void. The warp oozing to the real world had brought eerie, fleeting images to my today's dreams but they were no old nightmares of the shrine or the cursed fortress. Cities of inhuman beauty growing towards alien suns, vaguely similar to the sorrowful remains of Iarmailt, spots of irreal light forming glowing inscriptions I couldn't read.

I ascended to the crystal spire again, only to see the place of contemplation already taken by Lucia. The warpseer's fragile form, now out of the sturdy frame of her exoskeleton, was floating in aether waves flowing freely through the sorcerous crystal that glimmered in hypnotic changing patterns, revealing shiny veins of runescripts like the ones I'd seen in the dreams.

Like most psykers at work, she didn't turn her head but her aura touched mine, and her wistful voice whispered in my head.

'Good morning. Don't speak aloud here.'

'It looks majestic,' I sent back to her. 'A place where memories of centuries have been swept away like a handful of sand.'

'Of millions of years. Great Iarmailt was a pitiful shadow of the magnificence ruined by the Old War before the first humans gained sentience.'

Her psychic speech was flowy and elaborate unlike the brief phrases she spat out in other places.

'Are my Ordo Xenos colleagues excavating the remains down there on the surface?'

'They did it a while ago. But then it got dangerous because of ceaseless incursions. Ancient lore stored on croneworlds. Relics so expensive the richest men of the Imperium don't have enough wealth to buy them. Even the biggest part of this outpost wasn't built by human hands. Millennia ago, an ancient farseer was gazing at the Ocean of Thoughts the same as me now.'

Having seen really hideous things since her earliest years, she had no supernatural fear before xenos and their works like most dwellers of the Imperium. The ramparts of Lathyrus had been constructed over the remains of an Eldar void-port, and most of its parts were kept intact not only for studying but because they proved useful during lengthy sieges.

'You want to ask something,' she suddenly changed her tone.

'The question will hurt you.'

'Nothing more can hurt me after I got my freedom.'

'The ship the Panther's Warpsmith is trying to repair on Pholiotina,' I said. 'It's almost similar to your previous haunted vessel but the size of a battle barge. It had a throbbing heart of spectral unflesh that turned everyone who touched it into dessicated husks.'

'The mine was a rubber fishing boat compared to the ships of this unholy pattern that turned whole armies to dust when the old powers suffered a vanquishing defeat. After the Old War, they remain hidden and dormant till the false armistice comes to an end.'

'Which war do you mean by...'

'The real one. The one that was waged in heaven. The one that forever scarred both the material world and the Immaterium.'

'I wonder where you learned that.' I was truly surprised as the War in Heaven was thought to be a myth even by most inquisitors.

'I travelled to places where the memory of those battles is still alive. We're in one right now.'

'The Despoiler wants to put them back into action. Like the Blackstone Fortresses he looted.'

'That's because their time has come.'

'When I pierced the heart with a necron shard, its light died out for a while.'

'They hope to feed it living souls of Aeldari seers preserved in magic crystals to bring it back to unlife after uncounted millennia of slumber. Your wound could only postpone that a bit. Tainted vessels like that thrive on sacrifice. The mine devoured ten thousand cultists and slaves when the First Acolyte brought it into existence. Its sister-ships need millions if not billions. Pinnacles of foul daemon craft.'

I felt her sincere disgust for her former master. But there was another fact I needed.

'Do you know how to get to the intersection world, Lucia? Lady Cichlasoma mentioned a certain portal.'

'That's another task I'm doing here. The portal is a simple door like others that suddenly appears in the corridors. Sometimes a pompous entrance gate, sometimes a small manhole in the sewers. When I look around the outpost, I feel the aether breeze blowing in through the portal. I know when it appears and vanishes. Well, go munch your breakfast with your buddies,' she spoke in her usual tone again. 'I'm gonna report what I've seen to Lady Cichlasoma and visit the chapel for a morning prayer.'

'Let me join you with my crew,' I suggested. 'Curious about the way of life in other inquisitorial citadels.'

'It's all strict like in an army. We're an army indeed, always at war with daemons around and daemons inside. Once a week, or if one of us feels the need, we visit Father Chaplain for confession. He's present in the outpost garrison for so long he's no more a mere Grey Knight officer but a spiritual guide, a second father to us all. He's strict but very attentive to all sinful thoughts and slightest signs of corruption. Even Lady Cichlasoma herself asks his counseling when in doubt.'

'I've always wondered why blanks are ever needed by Chaos forces,' I admitted. 'They can be of use for machinations but their souls, if they really have them, are too hard to extract.'

'Not if they offer it willingly,' Lucia sighed. 'The best known story is that of the assassin named Spear whom the Hand of Destiny reforged to become a dangerous entity that could turn any psyonic blow back against the psyker. That's what the First Acolyte planned to do to Plodia even though she's way too weak. Imagine someone with the ability of Lady Cichlasoma or Lord Cynops instead.'

She turned back to the parts of her support frame piled on the floor, and they soared up at her gesture, coming together around her back and limbs by her will.

'Your talent is stunning, Lucia.'

'It's never brought me luck.'

The first half of the day passed as planned. After breakfast and prayer in the chapel I headed back to the spire leaving my retinue to have rest in our quarters. Fluffster departed to the docks to meet some other important visitors so I hoped to learn more about his mysterious correspondent soon.

On the way up Judge Pyralis suddenly intercepted me along with Aletes, the interpreter Novice. She hadn't been eager to visit the psyker tower before, so I stopped to talk to her with a feeling of trouble. Pyralis made a few signs, and Aletes started speaking, her tone and face uneasy and reserved.

'Lady Volentia, there's a need to discuss a very urgent matter. Face to face, if you don't object.'

'I do.' I shrugged my shoulders. 'I suggest waiting for the return of my sage who has a wider picture of what's going on.'

'Lady Judge is sorry for disturbing you and hopes the matter will be solved with mutual understanding. But it's... quite personal.'

'It's known that my psychic activity was sanctioned by Lord Mentor and his circle.' I recalled the phrase Fluffster had said on Auriglobus.

'Lord Mentor has demanded the problem to be discussed and clarified as soon as possible,' Aletes interpreted the Judge's stern brisk gestures.

I should have found out in advance who the said man was. Their noncompromising tone didn't bode well. I regretted having left my weapons in the room. There was nothing to do but to follow the Sisters.

Pyralis led me to an empty cabinet with a few book stalls and a desk. She sat down and pointed at a chair on the other side. Aletes stood between us leaning on the desk. Nervous, I folded my arms on the chest waiting for her to start the conversation.

'Lady Volentia,' Aletes began when Pyralis made a few quick signs. 'We look forward to your cooperation and sincere desire to help us in the struggle against the common foe. Every detail of your account is extremely important and meaningful to the cause.'

I nodded while the Silent Judge was pausing for effect.

'We are aware that a while ago you travelled aboard Lucia's cursed ship to the daemon world of the dark shrine.'

'To rescue my retinue,' I said firmly.

'It is known, and the purity of your intentions is doubtless. But the road to hell, as you know, is paved with good intentions. From the warpseer as well as from a few arrested cultists and even fewer escaped captives we've learned that it is immensely difficult to leave the world for good. Can you please tell us the details of your breakout. Was there anyone to assist you or at least to offer you help?'

I did my best to conceal a shiver of terror. The deadliest of traps, not just for me but for all of us.

'Not at all. Just Sergeant Raaf of the Raven Guard with all his stealth.' I nodded again with all determination.

Pyralis rose up slowly, the chilling gaze of her ruby lenses fixed on my face. She shook her head sternly.

'Lady Judge doubts the veracity of your words,' Aletes interpreted the Judge's fierce gesture.

'I have nothing more to tell you.' I froze up as the Excruciatus were notoriously famous for telling truth from lies with ease.

I was hardly able to break free from two seasoned fighters, and there was nowhere to hide in the outpost. To hide my team as well. An unwanted thought, a whisper of my inner voice popped up at the same second.

'Do something. Or else you're screwed. Look for any weapons to take up.'

Too familiar to be mistaken for my own mind. He saw and heard what was happening in the room. He'd find it out once I speak the forbidden words.

'Pull the table leg. Jump to the wall and throw it against the floor.'

I couldn't help succumbing to the irresistible desire to obey the unspoken order. Feverishly excited, I leapt to my feet and tugged at the closest leg of the desk. The Sisters looked at each other with unexpected astonishment, but I darted back and smashed it against the parquet. A blast of painful brightness shook the room and threw me to the door.

'Run away,' the First Acolyte's voice crooned from inside my head. 'Run to the portal. I'll show you the way. I'll be here very soon. Don't fear anything while you're silent about our little pact.'

Confused but still high on adrenaline, I closed my eyes and kicked the door open. The voice was murmuring on, and I rushed along twisting corridors in blind fear. A few words of prayer came up in the run, but my guide reacted with a hurtful stab to the midriff where his mark had been.

'Don't you dare to call out to the Anathema,' the whisper got sinister. 'Run away.'

I slammed against something hard and cold, and the voice died out. Gauntleted fingers gripped my wrists, the other hand touched my forehead. I cried out as a burning psychic wave surged over my troubled mind, but then I took a deep breath and opened my eyes.

Justicar Ystlum's silver-grey shape towered over me, soothing radiance of holy emblems on his armour dispelling the haze of unnatural panic. I felt ashamed and sorry for the Sisters. But the creeping fear didn't go, the enemy ready to fulfil his menace in case I reveal the secret.

'I didn't want to do them harm.' I looked up at the Grey Knight's visor. 'Let me go now. Lord Crinitus will explain everything if needed.'

Fluffster was a suspicious fellow at best but the only one that could defend me against the ruthless persecutors. Ystlum shook his head and lifted me up. He carried me to the elevators despite my attempts to bargain, to implore, to break free. The descent seemed to take an eternity before the elevator stopped, and Ystlum stepped out to an absolutely quiet corridor where both outside noises and voices of the warp were muted.

I tried to remain indifferent when he opened a large door covered with holy inscriptions from floor to the ceiling and put me on the floor. There was a spacious vault of polished metal without any furniture or even visible technical implements. To my horror, half of the garrison had gathered in the hall, led by Lady Cichlasoma herself. Pyralis was standing next to her, supported by two other Questorae, blood running down her face, her right arm hanging limply. She frowned on seeing me, and I looked down in shame.

In the middle of the vault I saw a dome of glass engraved with protective symbols like the door leaves. Two Grey Knights were standing inside, the severe Chaplain and Librarian Gwinwer.

'An impressive trick you've pulled up there, honey,' the veteran inquisitor addressed me dryly. 'We all want to hear more about your new buddy from the dark shrine.' She turned to her retinue. 'None of you should get close. Ystlum, enter the dome and don't let go of her hands.'

I clenched my teeth looking stubbornly at the Inquisitor Lady standing at the other side of the glass. The Librarian didn't move but the Chaplain put his heavy gauntlet over my head.

'Lying to us means lying to the Emperor,' he bellowed. 'Don't commit this sin.'

'Well, let's take it easy.' I smiled with effort. 'Let's sort it out without fuss and mutual hostility.'

'Sister Pyralis wanted to clear it out with a peaceful talk, but you decided to act out.' Cichlasoma pursed her lips. 'Just curious how you found out about the explosives in the table leg.'

'I can guess things sometimes. That's my job after all.'

'Stop leering and listen to my last proposition. Do you realize what awaits you here?'

'Nothing particularly good.'

'First we'll talk nicely, and if you're not a blooming moron, you'll just answer my questions and will be allowed to get back to work. If you go on showing off, Gwinwer will do a few psychic stunts you won't like. But if even that doesn't bring you to your senses, he'll rip open your mind and wipe it clean of all memories, but you'll be able to work as a servitor only afterwards.'

'All-in is all-in. I don't mind becoming a servitor.' I achieved a wry smile.

'Don't count on getting away too soon,' the Chaplain said sternly. 'Have courage to combat your sins, not to run from admitting and confessing them.'

'I have reasons.'

'I'll repeat the first question,' the Chaplain growled. 'What price did the First Acolyte ask for setting you free?'

'The one you won't be able to pay for me.'

'I'll have to put pressure on you if you keep acting by the enemy's will,' the Librarian said with a bit of sadness in his voice.

'I've told you not to waste your power but to start from a quick honest mindwipe,' I grunted.

'You're not the one to dictate what to do,' the Chaplain said. 'Brother Librarian, take all necessary care not to burn the mind out while it's not necessary.'

I closed my eyes and held my breath preparing for the searing graze of the Grey Knight's mighty aura. But an utterly mundane noise broke the minacious silence instead.

'And we were puzzled why nobody came to meet us, Lady Inquisitor,' I heard Fluffster's ironical chuckle. 'Took a while to find you in this xeno anthill.'

Fluffster approached the crystal dome, accompanied by two newcomers, an unusually tall man and a woman, both clad in plain unpainted power armour and hooded cloaks.

'I'm very sorry, my lord, Lord Periophtalmus, Lady Praecox,' said Cichlasoma. 'We couldn't ignore a direct order of Lord Mentor. To be honest, I thought you'd have paid more attention to his warnings.'

The same Periophtalmus whom I could attack by the interlocutor's opinion. Lord Mentor having a grudge with me was no good news either. But Fluffster only smiled.

'Patience isn't among the old chap's strengths. If you don't object, I'll try to solve it to our mutual relief.'

He entered the dome despite Cichlasoma's warning gesture and patted my head.

'Didn't expect you to roughhouse like that, Volentia. Sister Aletes is in the infirmary, Sister Pyralis has her arm broken. Don't panic and tell us who's provoked you to do all that bedlam. I'm the one you might trust fully.'

'After you consorted with fishy people behind my back?'

'That's why you started spying on me and even intimidated the chief astropath with your rosette,' Fluffster chuckled again as if it was a joke.

'If only this energy was channelled into something productive,' the man called Periophtalmus said.

'I've done that because you all trust me and depend on me,' I replied bitterly. 'If I reveal all, the bastard will...'

I stopped on seeing a servo-scribe hovering over the head of Lady Praecox.

'Don't fear,' Fluffster nodded firmly. 'Stakes are higher than ever now, and our guests arrived from Holy Terra to take part in the defence of Lathyrus. Your confession might provide vital details.'

'He promised a lengthy, excruciating death in the terrifying undervaults of their domain. I don't mind dying but I don't want you to suffer there till you're all broken and your souls are claimed by the daemons of the place.'

'I know that better than you,' Fluffster growled. 'That's why I watched and remembered everything while sitting in the damn cage over the nave. The Grey Knights and the Talons of the Emperor won't let our friends fall into the First Acolyte's hands.'

'He offered me safe passage in exchange for a life. He swore the man to be killed won't be a friend or close acquaintance,' I gave up. 'He noticed it at once when Sister Pyralis started the talk, and I couldn't resist his will.'

I paused, struck by a discovery I hadn't noticed in the adrenaline intoxication.

'That's how you found out about the hidden weapon,' Cichlasoma nodded.

'His voice sounded in my head in spite of the pariahs' presence. He said he'd come soon. Very soon.'

Tears rolled down my face, and I leaned back against Ystlum's armour, too weak to stand up.

'Forgive me for all this terrible mess.' I felt too ashamed to look at Pyralis, the Chaplain and Cichlasoma.

'May the Emperor forgive you this sin,' the Silent Judge said dryly.

The Chaplain put his hand over my forehead again to read the litany of reconciliation.

'From now on, Miss Volentia, you'll move from the Obsidian Tower to the secluded wing where the Sisters and the Grey Knights reside,' Cichlasoma said. 'For your own safety. Your friends may visit you there under the supervision of Ystlum or one of his men. You're obliged to attend confession daily without concealing anything like today.'

My team arrived to the well-guarded chambers as soon as my luggage had been transported there. Their faces worried by the rumours of the explosion in the office, they were delighted to find me alive and absolved. Lucia accompanied them, worried even more than my acolytes.

'You gave us quite a scare, lassie,' Uncle said anxiously. 'Some said you went crazy, some even thought you got possessed.'

'I've framed you,' I admitted. 'Not only now, but in the shrine as well.'

'We were astonished and smitten when the Justicar arrested you,' Angel said. 'Sister ran to the infirmary to help Aletes and find out more about you. The Emperor won't let the despicable traitor fulfil his threats.'

'You're a daft rookie if you trusted the First Acolyte's promise,' Lucia grunted. 'You'd curse him hundredfold afterwards, like I did. Those who bargain with him are already claimed. The stern notorious Imudon whom you've feared for all the months of your short career is just his little bitch.'

'Fluffster, there're questions to ask. About the man, about you,' I addressed the cricetid.

'Not yet,' his reply was strict and brief. 'All in good time.'

'You've summoned even the mighty Custodes for the coming battle.'

'You'll know why one day. You've already seen one of them today.'

'Lord Periophtalmus,' I guessed.

'Some of them, the Ephoroi, often take up missions of stealth. This system is valued more than all remaining clusters of this backwater sector. Observe and learn, and maybe you'll be able to stand in the same row of estimable agents of Terra as him and Lady Praecox.'

'So I'll ask you nothing more but to stand by my side in the fight when the enemies set foot in the outpost.'


	4. III

Days passed in growing disturbance as more and more ill omens came by the aether tides. The astropaths caught scraps of horrifying visions instead of messages from outside the system, and their blind eyes were bleeding each time they tried to establish proper connection. A little chapel in the heart of the outpost was never empty, even the most sceptical of acolytes coming to spend a calm hour under the protecting wings of the Aquila Imperialis.

Sister was almost always on her knees before the beautiful altarpiece, praying with all her Repentia zeal before the image of the Emperor. He wasn't depicted as a majestic ruler or formidable general but was standing amid the ruins of a burning city, surrounded by wounded soldiers and civilian fugitives searching for deliverance in His light. I gazed at the icon with both awe and desperate hope, none of His images I'd seen before as soul-stirring.

Uncle and Angel got religious as never before, somewhy strained even more than in our previous ventures, the visit to Medrengard and the fruitless sacrifice in the maw of the cursed barge having been the last straw. All three tried to console me but I felt they needed sympathy and safety much more than me. When Uncle wasn't praying, he was grumbling the same few phrases about the mess of a universe, good old times, normal plain work on Uebotia. Angel was mostly quiet and brooding, the experience of nigh Black Rage still haunting him after that night. He fled the company of ither people in constant anxiety that the agonizing memories of his gene-sire's death would flood his mind again, and incurable grievous fury would erase all but the burning desire to fight and die.

An hour until lunchtime, Sister got up to visit wounded Pyralis and Aletes in the infirmary. I didn't dare to approach them while their grudge was still fresh but hoped Sister's compassion would soften their resentment. Fighters and workers one by one came to the corner where the Chaplain was listening to their confessions, and I stepped closer waiting for my turn.

He leaned his imposing skull visage towards me and covered my head with his silver-embroidered epitrachelion.

'What sins or doubts do you have to confess today?' his voice was firm and stern.

'Despondency and recreance.' I bowed my head lower and sighed.

'Your superiors recommended you as a person of deep faith, though your Radical activities can easily bring you to the brink of heresy. You are scared of the abominable traitor and ashamed that you let him control you. That comes from your lack of sobriety and quite loose moral standards. You prefer being practical yet seldom think whether your way of action is the way of the Emperor. Others can be deceived by falsely amicable smiles, but not the Master of Mankind.'

'When I've already fallen, I cannot get rid of the First Acolyte's disturbing memories. I don't see nightmares of him anymore in the protected quarters but I feel he will come for me soon. Neither he nor Imudon will let me go. After I wasted both shard-daggers, I'm totally defenceless against their foul assaults.'

'You relied on decrepit xenos items more than on His Providence,' he objected strictly. 'Falling down is no more than a reminder of human weakness against hubris and vanity. You should get up and go on with the Emperor in your mind. He has rescued Lucia from the abyss of sin and corruption and returned her to the fold of His faithful though she was denied His Grace since her younger years on the accursed daemon world.'

'I'm afraid the Sisters won't forgive me,' I recalled another shameful moment.

'You have hurt them, so try to make amends with due humility. Think of the people you have sworn to protect but not at the cost of abandoning His cause.'

Tears burned my eyes, and I tried to blink them back.

'Do not get upset,' the Chaplain's tone softened a bit. 'To repent means to forsake your previous sins and persist in virtue. Let His love console your troubled soul and cure your shame and sorrow.'

Lucia approached me when I was about to exit the chapel. Her face was peaked and pale after a sleepless night of observing the roiling waves of the Immaterium.

'Sorry to ruin your day, but I've got greetings for you from our common foe. I fainted when he visited me before dawn to announce with his despicable smirk that he'd be here tomorrow. Nothing that I haven't seen in the warp - crimson of the Seventeenth and purple of the Third joining their forces to storm our citadel. Imudon joined by an old buddy, a tainted, perverse ally marked both by a trace of xenos captivity and omens of coming macabre flesh-change. Haven't seen his face but I suspect a man familiar to both of us.'

Aphedron was rumoured to have perished on Iarmailt after I'd left him in the crystal sands but fate was tricky, and the said xenos could be the grim Aeldari warriors who'd battled the Beast.

'We have time to prepare and will to fight.' I nodded decisively to cheer her up.

'When raw Chaos gets in the game, it always catches even the best fighters unawares.'

Warned by the warpseer, Cichlasoma summoned the garrison commanders to the main strategium in the afternoon. Two Tempestus squad leaders, the Silent Judge with her arm in plaster, Fluffster accompanied by the chief enginseer and the enigmatic pair of Terran agents. I was glad to see Fluffster as he hadn't left the Mechanicus quarters since the scandal, instructing the local tech specialists before the assault.

Cichlasoma herself brought in her blank grandson serving as her interrogator and a sinister figure in black. I hadn't seen one before but I recognized the skull helmet and the cumbersome Animus Speculum of a dreaded Culexus assassin. Their combined suppressing presence was enough to make me feel sick and weak, only the Grey Knights, as designed by the Emperor Himself, weren't even disturbed by the nulls, their psychic abilities working in an unknown different way.

'First of all, we have to ensure none of the attackers gets to the support systems and, the most important, the door,' said Cichlasoma.

'You're aware of the specifics of both the Word Bearers and the particular warhost,' replied Periophtalmus.

'We've enabled teleport homers in all vital part of the fortress in case they send in daemons,' Fluffster said.

'But how shall we secure the inquisitor with the mark?' the recovering Novice interpreted the Judge's gestures, and I smiled crookedly as the eyes of the grim commanders turned towards me.

'I'm also present here, in case anyone didn't notice me.'

The joke turned out lame. Pyralis frowned but raised her gauntlet to answer to me for the first time since the accident.

'The dark priest easily forced you to attack us. But for Ystlum, you'd have been driven to the arsenals, the generators, the docks with no effort.'

'We're here to observe the sorcery of the warhost leaders,' Praecox interfered. 'Lady Volentia's retinue will accompany us to the main battlegrounds. The mark gives knowledge of things, but not real strength till the final sign isn't there. Dimerus is armed with a double of the shard-spear we recovered from a derelict Webway port.'

Lady Cichlasoma sighed, and I noticed a shadow of strain on her usually impassive face.

'Take care out there. I doubt they will board with a large number of marines but he'll join the fray for sure. But for the assistance of Lord Mentor, we'd got smashed and lost.'

The first salvos came early in the morning. Red lamps flickering on auspex screens, sirens wailing in the corridors, the giant fortress shivered in the stormy warp tides every time powerful blasts hit the void shields. I put on my cuirass and carapace vambraces and greaves borrowed from the outpost armoury, drew both weapons and ran out to the corridor where my retinue had gathered, fully equipped, at the exit of the fortified chambers. The guests were there as they'd promised, armed with peculiar relic weapons I hadn't seen even in the Ordo manuals. Periophtalmus carried a power pike vaguely similar to iconic Custodes spears, and Praecox had a ranged weapon that looked like a psycannon of an uncommon pattern. On her back I saw a canister of promethium, the hose folded and fixed on her pauldron.

I studied the screen near the door before going out. Most of the generator capacity was distributed between the outer shields as we were under heavy fire of two Battle Barges, as Praecox explained. The spire was marked red. I clicked on the zone to see the forces directed there. The whole squad of Grey Knights combating a daemonic invasion amplified by the lack of protection in the psykers' quarter.

'Lucia has been tasked to lead a special force to the portal,' said the Ephor. 'Once the daemons are vanquished, the Purgators will teleport to the said location to join her.'

A few other spots flickered red, warning about a few bands of cultists sent in through warp rifts. No marines despatched yet, we had time to get to the headquarters defended by Lady Cichlasoma and the Sisters. The Mechanicus chamber was still secure under the leadership of Fluffster. We all missed his resilience as well as his exceptional weaponry but the outstanding agents were an intimidating army by themselves, if the rumours of Custodes and their armbearers were at least partly truthful.

A chilling draft made me shiver, and a black shadow crawled out of a shaded passage soundlessly. Dimerus the assassin put his hand on the Speculum, the other gloved hand squeezing a short javelin with a dark opaque tip strikingly reminiscent of my necron weapons as well as Cichlasoma's menacing spear.

Repulsive odour of Chaos taint was leaking from the rifts into the silent corridors. Periophtalmus had traced the shortest route to the headquarters through a few emergency ladders hidden in the sewage reservoir system. As we climbed to the topmost platform, we heard distant battle noise from behind the sealed doors. Shots, yells of fury and pain, repeated heavy thuds. Periophtalmus rushed forth, the doorleaves slid open as soon as he reached for the sensors but then a mighty blast shook the hall, and last cries died out.

We stopped before a narrow passage blocked with a few dozens of cultist corpses. Some clad in handmade primitive armour of tin and cracked plates of looted flak cuirasses, some almost naked, they lay in bloody piles, killed by only a squad of storm troopers sent to protect the stairway. Unfortunately, the defenders hadn't survived the uneven combat. Two of them were buried under the bodies of mutated Khornates, beaten to death with metal clubs and steel rods, the crazed berserkers having taken more than twenty shots while still on their feet. Two more had been killed by the grenade explosion we'd heard, along with a throng of attackers. The last one had probably survived for long enough to send a message to Cichlasoma but he didn't breathe anymore when Sister leaned over him. I folded my hands in the sacred sign and uttered the death litany.

'Take care,' I ordered my warriors by vox. 'Angel, bring the rear in case of new rifts.'

Hostile psychic presence hit my mind when we reached the end of the passage. We ran out to the platform below the central level only to see two Chaos Marine squads storming the fortified gates to the lower section of the hidden stairway. Another Tempestus squad and a large detachment of armed Malleus acolytes had taken cover behind defensive constructions to hold the enemy off for at least a quarter of an hour.

'They're all heading there,' Praecox said. 'Wait, a transmission from the headquarters.'

Trying to keep close to the assassin to suppress my psychic presence, I crouched to look at the traitors through a small loophole in the fencing. Imudon was there, clamouring unholy incantations with all might of his superhuman lungs. Around him ferocious terminators in rune-engraved armour were mauling defense turrets without major damage to their possessed suits. A sleek swordmaster in purple armour climbed up the sheltering construction unfurling his battle scourge, and I recognized Aphedron the Magnificent. His aura sulky and filled with dull pain of poisoning, he was still a paragon of melee agility. His kineblades pierced both hands of an attacking acolyte, and the Chaos Lord ripped him in half with a brisk move of his tentacles while his lash constricted around the closest storm trooper's neck.

'Let's head down there.' Praecox turned to us ending the transmission. 'The portal has appeared in the sewage. The Grey Knights are in trouble as the daemon summoning made the lower floors of the Obsidian Tower collapse and combust. Our generators have suffered too much damage from the barges to support the homer network. I doubt they'll blow up the whole station but they won't stop until they reach the door.'

'Lady Volentia, head to the central hall along with your retinue,' Periophtalmus ordered. 'Both you and us will be in danger if the First Acolyte finds you anywhere near the portal. It's of no good that he hasn't appeared yet.'

The enigmatic grey cardinal behind Imudon's imposing figure whom I'd chosen to bargain with to get even worse pain in the ass.

Both agents climbed the fencing with lightning speed and jumped down to the battleground. Hovering in their anti-gravity equipment, they opened fire in sync, a gush of violent flame and a mighty psychic beam disrupted the traitors' crushing assault. Periophtalmus landed on a Chaos Terminator knocking the traitor off his feet, and ran his pike through his helmet before the terminator could attack him. Praecox tore a psykout grenade off her belt and hurled it at Aphedron on landing to the top of another construct. I closed my eyes at the null outbreak, and when I opened them, the stunned Chaos Lord was getting up to his feet back in the middle of his own men. The Custodian fought with prowess and speed unseen even in space marines, spinning his pike and firing the built-in flamer at ten enemies who rounded him up, his companion supporting him with psychic blasts. When he ran out of fuel, Praecox threw the canister hose to him without ceasing fire.

When I looked back, the assassin was nowhere near. Uncle tugged me by the sleeve showing at the back door to the central corridors. The same second a burst of pain in the solar plexus made me freeze up. Down below, the First Acolyte's shape appeared on the platform. He folded his arms observing the fierce combat, nodding with a slight smile when Imudon parried another pike strike with his Accursed Crozius.

No sooner had I thought about his plan than Dimerus's black shape darted towards him from behind a corner, the javelin ready for the toss. A quick move, and smoking maroon blood ran to the floor from an exit wound in the Chaos priest's chest where the molten tip stuck out of his crimson breastplate. He turned slowly, his face twisted with pain, but then his outline blurred into a flash of dark flame. A chilling anti-psychic scream of agony resonated in my mind, and I saw the First Acolyte standing over the bloodied, ravaged body of the Culexus scion. The assassin's head and chest were one raw, gaping wound. My nemesis crushed the remains of the Speculum with his boot and kicked away the javelin pole.

I couldn't utter a word, let alone move, my gaze fixed on the dark priest's face. A trail of burning blood was left behind him as he stepped closer to the platform edge. His eyes met mine for a second, and he raised both hands with a wry simmer.

The air around cracked with warp lightnings, holes tearing in the reality, frenzied cultists started falling out to the platform from every direction. With yells and incantations they rushed to us swishing clubs, cleavers and metal rods. Able to wield my body again, I pressed on the chainsword throttle and cut open the unprotected side of a tattooed blood cultist a moment before he smashed my face with his maul. Dodging fierce blows, hacking, firing my laspistol at numerous foes at once, I broke through the attackers to my retinue. Half a dozen lay dead on the gored floor, ripped by Angel's power claw. Sister cried out desperate prayers when she raised her heavy Eviscerator again and again. Uncle fell to one knee, every accurate shot bringing an enemy down.

One of my vambraces was missing, the other had been fractured by a hit with a lead pipe. Under the attack of still increasing cultists we had to retreat to the corridor hoping it would be easier to finish the enemies in the enclosed space where they couldn't overrun us like the unlucky storm troopers. Still they were breaking through, climbing over the bodies of their fallen peers, shooting their makeshift guns, tossing knives and metal scraps. I noticed a bulky man with a clump of frag grenades on his chest.

'To the back doors!' I yelled at my retinue. 'Before he blows up everyone in this rathole!'

Angel pushed me and Sister to the exit covering us from enemy fire, Uncle reached the doorleaves with a single leap and swung them open. The lock closed behind our backs, and almost at the same time the floor shivered under our feet when an explosion of tremendous power shook the corridor. We headed to the stairway but sinister lighting discharges cracked again.

The newly appeared cultists were few, waifish dirty silhouettes in motley rags, but their combined psychic might enveloped us as a smothering haze. I tried to activate my weapons with effort struggling with an iron will that bound my legs and arms. Only Sister and Angel were able to resist the witches' assault, their faith and indoctrination too strong to succumb, but a moment later Sister's habit was burning, set on fire by a pyrokine, and Angel struck empty air where the psykers evaded his blows phasing in and out of reality. Uncle fell on his side, paralyzed like me, blood running from his nose.

One of the psykers, a hooded shaking goner of undiscerning gender and age, was coming closer, the choking telekinetic grip squeezing my throat. I gurgled helplessly as both weapons slipped out of my loosened fingers. Everything went dark, I felt my body soar up, driven by the witch's malign will. My breath stopped, and I fell head over heels down into the sewer waters.

Only then did the strangling grip release me. I plunged out of the foul-smelling water and caught my hat floating on the waves next to me. The heavy cuirass and greaves were dragging me down to the bottom, tired, numb muscles of my battered limbs didn't obey but I struggled inch by inch till I reached a row of pipes to have a few minutes' respite. My psychic sight returned to me, and I peeked carefully into the depth of the unlit tunnel before. Nothing but a gigantic drain where I'd get crushed in the purification system.

I reached for an inside pocket with my trembling hand and pulled out a small capsule of stimulators. It would be enough to get up the nerve to climb up the pipes. Slippery and shaky, some of the clamps broken or missing, the biggest pipe was an only way to the lowest platform two meters above my head. A single false move was enough to fall to certain death. I took a deep breath and made a few steps towards the pipe. Ignoring fatigue and fear, I grabbed a clamp on the level of my eyes and pulled myself up. The corroded clamp broke in two but I managed to cling to another one and put my foot on a small ledge. With a final effort I reached for the edge of the platform and tumbled over the short fence.

Darkness and absolute silence. The upper level I'd collapsed from was a dim spot meters above. But for the telekine, I could have got injured or even died on hitting the water. Relying on my warp-sight, I got up and hobbled forward holding to the fencing. My rosette was luckily still there under the coat lining so I opened the door and looked around searching for auspex screens to find the shortest way back to the center.

Another living soul's faint psychic light flickered in the distant end of the passage. Not a hostile witch, a friend.

'Lucia, that's me, Volentia,' I sent her. 'Are you here alone?'

'I've hurried to help you.'

'Praecox and Periophtalmus said the Grey Knights should have joined you.'

'There're more daemons up there for them to fight,' she sighed. 'The Neverborn slew my Tempestus companions, I'm only alive because I had a psykout grenade. But I'm almost blind after the explosion. Come closer while the gruesome-twosome and their puppeteer haven't got to the portal.'

'Even a Culexus assassin was powerless before the First Acolyte,' I recalled the fight. 'He's truly a chosen champion of the Ruinous Powers.'

'Don't you mention him now, dummy,' she snapped at me. 'Get to the very end, that very door is here. It's not locked.'

'I won't get there without my retinue.'

'I'll kick your ass outta the station if you go on acting out.'

She touched the door, and fresh wind broke in with a smell of damp earth and rain. Grey light leaked into the dark passage, and I saw tears on her wrinkled face.

'Let's go together,' I took the warpseer's emaciated hand.

She opened the door wider and pushed me inside.

'I won't run away anymore. It's just a little while now. Shut the frigging door, and it'll vanish. Don't you feel him approach us? You'll have time to escape the intersection world through another portal before they get there.'

She stroked a small psycannon mounted on the vambrace of her exoskeleton. Crimson glow oozed through the dark revealing the First Acolyte's sinister figure. His horrible wound healed with no trace, he beckoned with his usual coy smile.

'They're waiting for me,' Lucia spat out. 'None of their souls will be yours again, monster. Screw you, by the Emperor.'

A blessed bolt left an ugly smoking hole in the place of the dark priest's left eye but he darted forward with superhuman speed. There was a sound of bones cracking, and the warpseer's frail body fell to the floor, her neck snapped. The First Acolyte smiled and beckoned again.

I cried out and pulled the door. It slammed shut with a loud clap, and the corridor was lost to sight. I was standing in the middle of a vast blooming field under the rainy skies of an alien world.


	5. IV

The air smelled of rainwater, fresh grass and earth. Heavy drops were drumming on my hat, trickles coming down to my shoulders from the brims. As far as the eye could see there was nothing but endless plains expanding to the horizon veiled in grey mist. Purple, pink and white lupines were swaying gently under the chilly wind, and the skies above were clouded and plain. An eerie world moody, and slumbering, and devoid of sentient life.

There were no landmarks, no directions to go, no way back to Lathyrus. It would take days, or even months or years to cross the unnaturally even expanse to find another passage to leave. Most of the portals led to ancient croneworlds deep in the Eye of Terror, so the first step into the unknown would be most probably fatal. Only if I'm lucky enough, I'll get to the Webway or an Imperial world.

I wended to a random direction across the meadow, waist-deep in wet lupines. Bleak, melancholic colours of the forlorn xenos planet added in to my sorrow. So many people killed in a single hour, and among them a once-hated enemy servant who'd become my friend. She'd been a living sign of the Emperor's mercy but also a loyal ally who'd risked everything to stay with us. I said a quick prayer and felt tears running down my cheeks. I wiped them with my sleeve trying to think about more practical matters to get away from my sad memories.

No doubt I was in a fix. No weapons, no rations. All I had at hand was an old vox-slate, a literal flashlight, a small multitool, a bank chip in one of my coat buttons and my frigging rosette. Drinking rainwater and eating lupines sounded at least a bit reasonable but fighting off other possible intruders with a bottle opener was utterly ridiculous. Some worlds like that were populated by warp beasts who weren't always harmless, let alone daemons attracted by fresh souls.

I took out the slate and checked the connection. The bead had fallen out of my ear while I'd been splashing around in the sewers. Predictably nothing, even the chronometer had stopped working. I kept on walking, constantly looking out with my psychic sight that had grown a bit stronger in the place of Eldar warp sorcery. From time to time I saw small pools of water or blooming bushes of white wild roses but nothing more remarkable.

About two hours had passed till I stopped, startled by a faint psychic resonance. It felt like a portal opening nearby but I wasn't sure the newcomers were human at all. I plunged into the lupines with the multitool in my fist suppressing my aura.

A sound of heavy steps and panting. In the distance, closer, right next to me.

'Get up,' I heard a voice scarily familiar. 'At least I didn't have to do much looking around to find you.'

I turned my head and met the grim gaze of Dark Apostle Imudon. He was towering over me with a combat knife in his hand. To my surprise, he had nothing on but a torn surplice over the charred remains of his bodyglove.

'Cheers, man,' I replied reluctantly. 'You look like you've just lost a few rounds of strip poker to Aphedron.'

'To your Grey Knights.' His tone was gruff. 'But I'm still too strong for you to resist.'

'I'm not gonna fight back if you promise to fend off other shitheads of this podunk.'

I got up to my feet, and the Chaos Lord sheathed his knife. Only then I noticed a dark stripe of blood trickling down his side.

'That's where your chav buddy stabbed me with the sacrificial dagger. He was a moron like you to trust my tricky, oily second-in-command. The First Acolyte looks very nice and gentle, but things he does to the captives in the undervaults are never that gentle. I warned you. I threatened you with his excruciations. Well, you had a chance to witness it.'

'I hate him more than you,' I admitted. 'He's killed the warpseer. Now he's about to take my friends because I've blabbed about the pact.'

'You'll be slain at the last gate before he claims you.' He nodded at me.

'The most encouraging words I've heard from you.'

He put his hand on my back and sighed instead of an answer. His face was pale, he tried not to show pain but the warp-shadow of his suffering caused by the tainted wound lingered around him. Without his creepy panoply he looked almost like a normal man, a seasoned soldier with a stubbly face and heavy hangover.

'Let's find a way out,' he grunted.

'With you around, I don't have to worry about resources. We have armed power, and in case I'll be starving you're large enough for a month of lunches.'

'I wish I was Aphedron to give you a smart reply about protein nutrients.' He gave me a slight wry smile.

I shrugged my shoulders but smiled back. The disgusting stench of brimstone was gone with the rune-inscribed corrupted armour, and I was astonished to notice a faint smell of machine oil from his surplice. It reminded me of my first year in the retinue when my mentor was so tight on cash he bought a numbered compartment berth only for himself, and the other few acolytes had to hide in tiny spaces between ship bulkheads on the floor stained with oil and grease no one had cleaned for decades.

'You're smart to keep out of your pompous warlord chambers, man. Just imagine the amazement of an assassin who infiltrates your rusty bucket and blows a bomb over your opulent bed.'

'The more you stay on the top, the more enemies to beware you have. Assassins are among the least dangerous.'

'It's obvious that you sleep between bulkheads on a dirty mattress like a proper hobo.' I winked at him.

'You're keen even for an inquisitor,' Imudon said with approval I didn't expect.

'You like me because I'm a scoundrel. There aren't enough scoundrels in your life. Predictable for the Seventeenth.'

The rain never stopped, and we were both already drenched to the bones. It was neither chilly nor warm, bleak late spring of agri-worlds or hive cities. The lupine meadow now went downhill, and after a quarter of an hour we stopped on a narrow sandy shore of a small lake. Imudon stood in silence watching the monotonous pattern of ripple circles over the water surface, his face weary and sad.

'You aren't that willing to go on,' I dared to break the moody quietude.

'Because all I want is to leave this mess behind,' he snapped. 'To be honest, I don't believe even in the successful outcome of the ritual as it demands for a rival to vie for the favour of the gods.'

'So you had to bring along our lustful common acquaintance. He's quite beat-up after the holidays in the craftworld.'

'Worse. The eternal curse of most Chaos worshippers is overcoming him. Despite his reputation, he turned out to be not lewd enough to become a daemon prince.'

'But billions of idiots are drawn to your side like flies on honey. Well, not quite honey.'

'You think I'm gonna argue with you? I've fallen into the same damn pit as my blood family. My bloody bloodthirsty family of Khorne followers. When the Emperor had them executed for trying to harvest a few skulls of His servants who'd arrived to bring our world to compliance, I had nowhere to go. Soon I got conscripted to the ranks of His steadfast tin soldiers. After the Riot, everything was back on track, going to the dogs like nowadays.'

'Your coy subordinate took you in hand.'

'It worked the same as with you. I had to repeat these stupid phrases, these meaningless rites so that the gods ignored me. So that the gods let me go one day.'

'You shouldn't be that open about that, if only that's not another trick.'

'Less than a day left till the long-awaited moment when your blood spills on the altar, and the door opens.'

I frowned. 'And Aphedron goes out.'

'Let it be. It must be finished, this way or another.'

'You're so determined to get to the shrine while we are in the middle of lupine nowhere.'

'Another hour along the shore, and we'll reach the only remains of the world's previous owners. Ancient wraithbone ruins of a craftworld palace. The few runes that weren't erased by merciless millennia show the way to other planets once frequented by the xenos.'

He moved towards a row of blooming rose bushes, and I followed. The sweet, wistful smell of bone-white roses reminded me of the detached calm of convent gardens and old cemeteries.

'Tell me, isn't everything here of a timeless green?' A line of an old poem once recited by Fluffster came to my mind as I contemplated the misty landscape.

'These moments are the silent witnesses of a season about to pass,' he suddenly replied with a line from the poem's final verses.

'Fluffster taught me that,' I sighed. 'An advisor as enigmatic as your sidekick but hopefully not so malicious.'

'I've known him for longer than you think. He was the opposite of a fluffster back then.'

I was reluctant to discuss the cricetid with my enemy but I doubted everyone else would be ready to share the secrets connected with the upper echelons of Terra.

'I've been watching him for a while, and he never ceases to amaze me. His knowledge of the Necrons mustn't be that unnatural for a Magos, but strange conversations about the Custodes or ciphered letters from unknown people encoded in a way I couldn't find in any of my manuals and data archives. He has me around for a purpose I can't understand.'

'I know that other man.' He shook his head wearily. 'The mark allows us to observe those close to you, and if the old sage didn't pick you up there wouldn't be any reasons to keep you alive for so long.'

'He's not a Magos at all.'

'He'd been born before the Mechanicus order was established. His secret interlocutor you tried to spy on was Lord Mentor, the ancient Terran bruiser himself. He insisted on getting rid of you after the venture to the temple. I've been so damn blind when the old trickster was in my hands. Custodes, and blank Sisters, and Grey Knights, he said, didn't he?'

The guess was a bolt from the blue.

'They're heading not to Medrengard. To demolish your frigging daemon shack. That's why Fluffster allowed you to capture him. If you're not quick enough, you'll arrive right to the smouldering ruins.'

'If you don't shut up now it will hurt,' Imudon snarled.

His steel fingers squeezed my shoulder so I couldn't help hissing with pain.

'They'd just use you to the max and dispose of you when you got wayward or unpredictable, dumb girl.' He went on tugging me forward. 'They've had a lot of double agents, tethered goats, unaware puppets like you. Lord Mentor, this staunch pariah bully, had been leading a warhost decoyed as another Dark Apostle for years. I recognized him but I didn't give him out because I hoped he'd rid me of my First Acolyte. I had to lie low so that he didn't pick up my trail.'

'Why did he need you, a pathetic loser despised even by the gods?'

Imudon pulled out his knife, his features frozen in a bout of cold anger.

'I still have enough time to wipe that scoffing grin off your face. Even psychoindoctrinated marines pleaded for mercy when they met my true wrath.'

'I've already told you you're too dark, your worshipfulness.' I put both hands up with the most innocent expression. 'I'm just curious because I'm in a state as pathetic.'

'I used to be one of their puppets myself,' he spat out as if trying to get a heavy weight off him.

A narrow sandy path appeared amid the lush lupins, winding uphill towards a blurred outline in the distance, hidden behind the veil of rainfall. We walked between tall hedgerows of wild roses on both sides of the road, and withering petals were blown off damp branches and stuck to our soaked habits.

As we were getting closer, collapsed yet still elegant towers and terraces appeared from the mist, glowing walls of pale wraithbone cracked and covered with bright green moss. The ancient palace was buried in earth up to the carved gateway arches, and shattered pieces of balconies and columns lay in piles under the gaping holes of former windows. Desolated for uncounted centuries, it had been visited by stray xeno visitors only, whose lingering psychic trail mixed in with the remaining feeble aura of the wraithbone, an only reminder of the long-dead architects.

'You climb first,' Imudon shoved me to an improvised stairway made of piled wraithbone blocks under the lowest window.

I ascended slowly holding to the slippery chunks and rose bushes growing in deep cracks. I was too short to cling to the cornice under the windowsill so I stopped on the top block leaning on the mouldy wall.

'That's the strength of modern Inquisitors,' Imudon chuckled scornfully. 'Wait a second.'

He leapt up to the topmost step, pulled himself up to the window and jumped into the shady hall. A good moment to throw myself down to my death. I wasn't brave enough. Imudon leaned out to grab me by the waist and drag me in.

When he put me on the wet crumbling floor, I reached out with my mind to catch the disturbingly strong alien psychic presence. The hall was quiet, grey light oozing through tall narrow oriels, only a faint sound of dripping rainwater barely heard in the stillness.

'Xenos have been there. The trail is still fresh.' I tugged him by the sleeve.

'If these are craftworld Aeldari, we'll sell our lives dearly. If their Drukhari cousins, their sweet souls will be claimed by She-Who-Thirsts. And if they're Harlequins, let's dance our last dance well.'

He took me by the wrist and headed to a frail spiral staircase that ended under the very vault at a small platform with a fencing of shattered seer crystals.

'The millennia-old runes only visible on the ceiling. Ancestors of craftworld farseers ascended to the high spire to catch the subtlest signs of aether tides and inscribe the most intricate discoveries on the walls. But the vault was engraved by those who'd built it even before the Great War. They carved an arcane network of routes running to every direction from the crossroads, and even ruthless time spared a part of the map above the pavilion of seers.'

I climbed the cracked semi-opaque steps first, Imudon going a turn below so that the run-down construction didn't collapse under our combined weight. Up under the very dome, a hundred metres over the floor, I walked up to the fence listening to the eerie song of the wind blowing through carved ventilation slots and crevices. Not just outside chilly breeze but the breath of the Immaterium filling the secluded roost of farseers. The white wall's subtle glow let us see the inscriptions half-covered with dark must that looked like foul spots on livid dead flesh.

A gigantic fractal maze of intertwining thin lines and runic marks expanded to the top of the vault, the biggest part above our heads damaged so it was no more legible. Imudon ran his finger across an ornate engraved line of Eldar script over the remains of the seer throne.

'Live your eternity, it says. But time bested even those who hoped to live forever.'

'In moments like that I'm sorry that I'm just a witch-hunter cop not dedicated to the mysteries of ancient civilizations and the Ocean of Souls,' I admitted tracing the captivating latticework of the xenos map.

'Not worth it.' He sighed. 'Let's now find a route to a world with a direct passage or, if I'm unlucky today, back to Lathyrus. This is not even a map, a vague and elegant hint at the elaborate pattern of constantly shifting portals. Some portals are pits or holes hidden in bushes and lupines, some are crackling clouds of warp glow, some are nothing more than an invisible tear one can notice with psyker abilities only.'

'A direct passage to your accursed shack,' distress and anger growing again, I took out my multitool and squeezed it in my fist.

When Imudon turned back to the vault, I stabbed him with all my physical and psychic strength aiming for the open wound. He gasped with pain and staggered. I folded my hands on the chest preparing for a harsh backlash. The only way to keep at least the soul out of his clutches, I had to provoke him into killing me on the spot. Fresh bright blood streamed to the floor. Imudon turned to me slowly, his face more sorrowful than irate.

'You really hoped to finish me with this?' He put his heavy hand on my head not even trying to close his wound.

'Thank your filthy gods I'd spent both shards before we met here,' I snapped back.

'I'd have been grateful, girl. More grateful than ever.' His face went pasty, he had to cling to the fencing so as not to fall down.

'One for you, the other for your subordinate.'

'My jailor,' he said bitterly. 'You'd have wasted the shard for nothing.'

'Why do you know?'

'I tried the same thing a while ago. Not a scratch left on his damn armour seconds after the strike.'

'He killed a Culexus assassin with his bare hands.' The memory made me shiver. 'Is he a marine at all? Or a daemon in human form?'

'Something even worse. I've been searching for clues for millennia. I took the bait myself because I was lost in the dark years of the Heresy. I thought I could run, I could hide, I could talk through all of this. Let's go down. I've found the path back.'

He descended with great effort, almost crawling down like a dead-drunk man, leaving a trail of darkening blood on pale wraithbone. When we got out of the ruined palace, he stood still on the top chunk for a few minutes before he started climbing down carefully and slowly. Shaky as a lame duck, he leaned on my shoulder when already down to the meadow.

The sky was growing darker, but the rain didn't stop at twilight. I followed Imudon in silence, too tired to make up other escape plans while he was able to walk and fight.

'I wanted to break free,' his voice was a faint whisper. 'All other ways are blocked to no avail.'

My anger had faded, a strange kind of sympathy coming in its stead unawares when I felt Imudon's desperate fear for his life he wasn't able to hide anymore under the tough facade of a Dark Apostle. I touched the sick man's cold hand slipping off my shoulder.

'You do remember the warpseer. A shrine slave marked with the abominable sigil. Destined to travel back and forth shackled to the cursed ship. But she pleaded for help to the One she'd been taught to hate, and He answered. She liked her life of suffering from unhealed injuries much more than being an able servant of the Ruinous Powers. Now she's dead but her soul was accepted in His Kingdom no different from His other beloved children.'

Imudon shook his head forcelessly.

'You can run, you can fight,' he wheezed out, 'but you cannot hide.'

He tripped on a slippery lupine stalk and gripped my arm feverishly. His fingers loosened all of a sudden. He fell to his knees, another gush of fresh blood smearing over the grass.

'Don't leave, girl,' I read his livid lips.

Imudon reeled backward and then flopped face down in the lupins. I hesitated for a second, bewildered by the sight of a superhuman warrior turned that helpless. He hadn't told me where the exit was, and I wasn't sure whether he'd get up again at all. Trying not to think about the xenos raiders nearby or days and weeks of futile roaming across the bleak plains, I rushed as quickly as I could to the gloom of the falling night. Luck and His Providence were all to rely upon.


	6. V

In half an hour the field was pitch dark. Though I didn't feel any presence around, I didn't dare to turn on the flashlight. By psychic sight alone I crossed another part of the meadow, broke through a row of tall rose bushes and walked downhill to a sandy lake shore. Keeping in mind Imudon's description of portals, I didn't stop snooping around, ready to jump into the first exit that appeared nearby. That just wouldn't get worse, and if my hapless nemesis was right, the unpaid debt could have a brighter side. It's known creditors care the most about the well-being of their debtors, and if the First Acolyte valued me as a bearer of his mark, he could pull me out of any shithole with his amazing skills. A vain hope but still better than nothing.

But what happened next was more surprising than any warp fireworks. My useless vox-slate tinkled from the bottom of my pocket. I pulled it out, wiped water drops off the screen and opened the inbox.

'Oright gurl, just located you. Stay on the shore under the closest lone bush. Gonna be there in a couple minutes. R.' A small sticker image of a raven under the text line. Was it another trap? Words unmistakably familiar, but the man was the one who used a part of the First Acolyte's power to cripple Imudon, and now appeared right when Imudon had probably passed away from the gruesome wound. Raaf had been a valued companion both in the venture to the daemon world and the city skirmish yet his sudden appearance in the most abandoned podunk around gave me chills.

Anyway I found the rose bush and stopped under the spreading branches as I badly missed any friendly support. With Raaf I wouldn't have to fear aliens or even Imudon if his gods were generous enough to revive him despite his failures. I heard no steps or power armour noise but the Raven's shaded mind touched mine, and his gauntlet slapped me on the back.

'I've been waiting on the other side for half a day with me crew, and got in right after our Epistolary was like, the door of Lathyrus changed its place. Sorry for arriving that late, our portal turned out to lead to the hills on the other side of this tiny ball.'

'You were planning to join me here?' I shrugged my shoulders with mistrust.

'Innit. Nothing to deal with any of your enemies. One of your bluds took me into his business.'

He hadn't to name the man.

'I'm getting sick of the cricetid's underground machinations,' I sighed. 'I bet he's kept astropathic contact with you since the escape from the shrine.'

'That's why I was of use in the hive riot. Today, your daemonfighter Gwinwer has contacted us.'

'You gonna get a mindwipe after a contact with the Grey Knights,' I warned him.

'Nope, gurl,' he chuckled. 'After the crap we'd seen in the shrine, your tricky bruvva couldn't let us go. Some extra rewards in exchange for doing their secret commissions from time to time.'

'Looks like he's informed you better than me. Imudon said, he has connections on Terra.'

'That's why Shrike didn't grumble too much. Besides that, I give him useful hints about the business in Segmentum Solar as well, behind your rodent's back.'

'Tell me more then.'

'I'm not allowed to give out much,' he grunted. 'Are you really interested in military operations Lord Mentor is planning against the Despoiler's approaching armies?'

'I just have a bad feeling this blows up in my face one day. He picked us up because we'd got marked by the nasty keepers of the daemon shack and bargained with them. I've just run away from Imudon who's most likely dead from the stab of your ritual blade by now.'

'Not the man I'd feel sorry for. A dog's death for a dog.'

'He was like, his First Acolyte is not the nice guy he pretends to be,' I said. 'He'll find you at the end of the world to make you pay for his service. He'd kept Imudon himself as a hostage.'

'Fluffster already told me,' Raaf's voice got stern. 'That's why I have to lead you back before he finds your trace. Me crew is ready to help if there're more foes.'

'There've been xenos as well. They went to the ruins before us but I haven't seen them yet. Pray to the Emperor they've left for good.'

'Aren't you tired of this piety of an agri-world granny?' He poked me in the side.

'I thought the ancient buddies gave you proofs of the Emperor's protection, man.'

'I won't believe that until I see Him with my own eyes,' he said stubbornly. 'It's just useful to scare people with the Big Daddy on the Golden Throne to make them work for free.'

'Well, better tell me where's the exit.' I wasn't in the mood for disputing theological matters.

'We'll have to go round the lake and then through a hill ridge to the middle of a large briar grove. You'll jump out right to your crew. Now shut up and have a munch.'

Raaf put a package of ration biscuits into my hand and gave me a nudge. His armour let him move through the foggy murk effortlessly, so I hurried after him chewing on the run. The rain had turned into a thick veil of cold drizzle that muffled all sounds.

Startling disturbance in the warp made me stop. The Raven lifted me off the ground in the same second and stuffed a vox bead into my ear.

'Keep mumb.' I heard his voice by the channel. 'The xenos are here. Let's try to walk past them without much noise.'

'Their presence is so loud,' I sent back to him.

'No witch-talk, gurl. It gives me headache,' he grunted.

An eerie, dim glow was leaking through the drizzle from the hills. Raaf slipped between a few bushes and ducked into a lupin patch between the shore and the foothill.

'Look through the binoculars but try not to cry out,' he warned me. 'No warp-sight, don't move for goodness sake.'

I took the field glasses he handed me and turned towards the ghostly light. Atop the hill a few sleek figures of creepy alien grace were fussing around a few large crates. Their sinister barbed armour didn't bode well for bystanders. An even more intimidating shape was watching over their preparation hovering on an anti-grav platform with glowing orbs, sharp blades and spikes glimmering on the xeno's artificial limbs.

'If they notice us, not even praying to your beloved Emperor will pull us out of their shithole of a city,' Raaf whispered. 'A haemonculus and a few kabalites. That means their leader is somewhere else and can overtake us right now.'

I had encountered Eldar before but the Drukhari seemed way more terrifying than even their skull-masked sniper cousins that had intercepted me on Iarmailt. One of my mentor's former Interrogators had been taken to the pits of Commorragh when the old inquisitor tried to blackmail a heretical rogue trader for some money. Stories of the perverted flesh-art of haemonculi were especially lurid, and Raaf was in much greater danger than me as a space marine's superhuman biology could survive the greatest amount of suffering to feed the aliens' insatiable thirst.

Another xenos shape appeared from the other side of the hill, taller than the kabalites, a decorated topknot wavering over the elongated pale face, the exquisite suit of tight armour adorned with roses of monomolecular blade-petals coated in dark poison, a coiled electrocorrosive whip and a few potion vials hanging from the belt. Grisly implements familiar by manuals and inquisitorial digests.

'Look, a whole archon,' Raaf whistled. 'Your holier-than-thou buddy's got problems.'

The menacing xeno chieftain was followed by two Incubi warriors hauling an unconscious, bleeding space marine. If only they managed to take him away before the First Acolyte arrived to interfere, I clenched my fists. The haemonculus's head turned backwards on a thin artificial neck joint, and his emaciated features distorted in a scary half-smile.

'I'll turn on the vox interpreter. Let's do some sneaky eavesdropping.'

There was a cracking sound of statics in the vox but then a cold, husky voice broke through.

'A sturdy mon'keigh fighter. The most useful thing you've brought since you ascended to your mother's throne.'

'It's up to you to make his augmented body whole again so that I could feast on his delicious agony.' The archon crooked his black lips and licked them with his pierced long tongue.

Imudon was lying flat on wet grass, his face peaked and impassive, but when the archon turned to his companion, I noticed that the priest opened his eyes to take a glimpse at his captors. His hands and feet were bound with glowing chains, and he didn't even flinch when the horrible medic leaned over him and stuck one of his bladed appendages into the wound.

'It stinks of unknown taint.' The dessicated head swayed on the slender vertebrae. 'All I can do is to stop the haemorrhage and fix the edges with a temporary seam. We have to drink him to the bottom before the yet hidden consequences take place. I've encountered a similar phenomenon in old derelict cities of the now abandoned part of the Webway.'

He cleaned the unhealed injury with a single blade slash, poured in glowing liquid from one of the vials he took from a potion rack over his head, stapled the raw edges with another surgical tool. A metal chord with an inset syringe lashed out from his vambrace, and Imudon opened his mouth and took a deep breath at the stimulator injection.

'I'll have a refreshment after the venture and go to Lord Vect's illustrious reception.' The archon smoothed his topknot.

'You'll have to shake fish scales from the Oceanarium off your armour first,' said the haemonculus. 'I'm going to locate and secure the passage with two of your bodyguards.'

'As if something can go wrong.'

The archon was pacing around his prey with self-admiration, cleaning and polishing his armour with a small roller. He put his foot on Imudon's chest, leaned down to stick the claws on his gauntlets into the captive's flesh savouring the pain. His effeminate face showed the satisfaction of a confirmed drunkard who'd found a bottle of fine booze. He licked blood from the talons, and I heard his squeaky voice in the vox.

'The ultimate pinnacle of your squalid race's craft is helpless at my feet, ready to cry and implore when his unworthy life essence fills me with vigour. You're a clumsy mimic of true enhanced warriors of our kind, a barbarian sculpture of dirty meat but your creators have given you just one useful quality. You'll hold on for longer than most of your kind. Are you at least aware who are you locked up with here on the ancient crossroads of my kin?'

'Show-off is the worst in them. Like he's an Ultramarine Scout with a clunky textbook on rhetorics.' Raaf turned the interpreter down.

'I do not give a damn about the names of pathethic wimps,who are locked up in here with me. The Dark Apostle of Chaos Undivided.' I startled at Imudon's snarl.

The fetters popped with a warp-fire flash. Back to his feet with his returned prowess, Imudon leapt at the stunted archon before the xeno reached for his weapon. Dodging the splinter shots of the kabalites who were still slow after the psychic shock, he lifted the archon off his feet and slammed him against the ground. A piercing shriek, a sound of backbone cracking. Imudon grabbed the xeno by the ankles and swung him as a giant club.

A crushing strike knocked over a kabalite, poisoned rose petals shattered and stuck in his armour driving the fighter into agony. Imudon kicked the body of the dying xeno at the other two right when they raised their rifles for another shot. The combat was so speedy the fighters blurred into a single whirling cloud. The incubi slipped out of shadows and dashed to join the fray.

Another flash overloading the psychic senses. A few whacks sounded as one. When the spider shape of the haemonculus soared up from the other side of the hill, Imudon's reaction was perfect. Once the haemonculus flung out his scissorhand mounted on an extensile augmented arm, Imudon parried with the hapless archon, the counterattack so strong it threw the haemonculus backwards. Imudon tossed the yelling archon's limp broken body over the pile of his bodyguards writhing in death throes and overtook the xeno chirurgeon before he could recharge his poison needles. The artificial neck cracked as a dried reed, the severed head rolled down the slope, the haemonculus tumbled down from his platform tangled in his own prosthetic limbs and spines.

Imudon tore off a piece of his surplice, emptied the crates on the grass and bundled up wraithbone armaments, a bunch of spirit stones and a few other artifacts I didn't know. When he headed downhill past the victims of his fury, the archon stirred and yowled reaching for a splinter rifle, only to have his hand crushed under Imudon's boot. Imudon grabbed a Punisher halberd dropped by one of the incubi and pinned the twitching xeno to the ground.

Raaf didn't say anything but I bet there was approval in his reserved nod. Even though I couldn't agree with his preference for his own former brethren over xenos, the Drukhari were little better than the dark priest.

When Imudon went out of the circle of dying light, the haemonculus got to his feet with great effort, barely able to hold up on his emaciated legs. He crawled back onto the platform, sensor devices over his shoulders spinning to locate the missing head. Hovering over the thick bushes at the foot of the hill, he reached into the mess of spiky branches with a surgical manipulator. After seconds of blind search he pulled out the head by the hair, wet petals and leaves stuck to the parchment skin, broken branches in the dishevelled topknot.

It took a him about a minute to fix it back on the bent neck vertebrae, but it drooped to his shoulder once he finished the repairs. Half of the spheres didn't work anymore, the rest about to die out. He approached the archon, the only survivor of the raiding party by now. I heard his wheezy voice break out of his mauled throat.

'You.. are... terrible... judge of character!'

He slapped on the halberd pole to drive it deeper through the archon's intestines.

'They've got other business to care for,' said Raaf. 'Let's get outta here.'

I clung to his neck, and he crept behind the row of bushes and dove into a small ravine hidden in the lupins. When the dim lights were left behind, he ran forward, up and down hills and knolls. The distant presence of the rift reached me before the Raven pointed at the grove. In the warp-sight the briars were lit by a shimmering light like a snow-covered forest on a starry night. Aether winds touched my mind, whispering of wanderers who had arrived to this place in millions of years. The same rain and the same lupines since the Old War.

The roses of the grove were as tall as trees, their boughs weaving together above our heads into an impenetrable vault strewn with flowers so white they glowed in the murk. Raaf put me on the grass under a spreading tree and waved at the depth of the woods where the immaterial radiance was leaking out to fill the place.

'Wait a bit, gurl. Gonna check it up and be back. Take me knife just in case.'

I took the wide grip in both hands, the knife in fact a short sword for ordinary humans. Raaf disappeared in the thicket without sound. The complete absence of non-plant life made the world uncanny, not a single bird chirping in the leaves, no bugs buzzing around. Nothing but the gentle rustling of roses and grass under the growing breeze.

Hostile presence disrupted the alien calm. A mixture of Eldar and human auras. The mass-massacring looter was smart enough to trace us to the exit. When his heavy pace was heard in the grove, I threw myself on the ground and curled up in a small hole under the roots covered with piles of withered petals. Imudon wasn't a psyker, so the Raven would return before he found me. If only the Dark Apostle doesn't slay my friend like the Drukhari with his trophy weapons. I pressed the vox bead to turn it off and back on.

'Are you fine, gurl? Call me if there're problems.' Raaf's voice was cheerful.

I hoped he heard the traitor's hoarse breath and lame steps. Imudon stopped somewhere nearby the tree, and I sensed a thin psychic beam slithering over the roots. I put all remaining strength in the concealing ruses taught by Acrolux, but Imudon kicked off the petals and gave me a shove.

'Get up,' he ordered. 'You cannot deceive the detector I borrowed from my Drukhari friends.'

I peeped out timidly as if he'd scared me half to death. That wasn't far from the truth, I had to admit. Imudon was carrying the bundle of loot in one hand, a small flickering piece of wraithbone in the other. His stimulators were wearing off, and blood was trickling down his side again, his posture much weaker after the combat.

Holding the combat knife tight, I half rose to my feet and swung the weapon with both hands aiming for his knee. A quick kick struck the weapon out of my hands and knocked me over. I slid back to the hole but Imudon threw the detector to the ground, grabbed me by the collar and put me on the grass next to him.

'Wanna play fencing, you brat?' He shook me violently. 'The xenos wanted, too. They kicked the bucket in agony, choking on their own puke. I know you're not alone here. A good day to avenge the wound that almost killed me.'

'I'm to blame for that, not Raaf. He fought for me and his men. Let's settle that between us two.'

He gave me the stink eye. 'One sound, and you'll hear your Raven croak. I'll run a poisoned Drukhari sword through his guts and leave him here to die in the same pain that's tormented me since your escape.'

'Sounds stupid but I don't feel like getting sacrificed today, man.'

'I don't give a damn about your opinion. I'm on the verge of losing my bloody soul so that it becomes another bloody wisp on the shrine walls.'

'Only because you betrayed the Emperor,' I said.

'Thousands of your colleagues do the same though they're hired to root out treason. Don't be afraid. You'll get a quick, clean death. Not the horrors that should have waited for you in the undervaults after you told your superiors about the pact.'

'What about my retinue then?'

'You'll die together. And go to your beloved Emperor if the fabled afterlife advertised by the Ecclesiarchy isn't a lie or self-deception. The gods want killings even more than souls.'

'Just let Raaf live.'

He nodded. 'I'll forgive my previous grudges and run as far away from here as I can if I get my freedom. Enough working for the plans of others.'

A shot rang out. Imudon dropped the bundle and pressed his hand to his chest. Blood gushed from between his fingers.

'The accursed wound. It's made me a damn slow fool.' His loosened other hand slipped down my back.

He reeled backwards and slammed into the tree.

'Run here, right now!' Raaf shouted through the vox.

I slipped under Imudon's trembling arm and hurried to the warp rift ducking under low branches, jumping over fallen trees, breaking through the thorns. Raaf was waving his hand at a circle of briar trees intertwined so the boughs formed a pavilion covered with hundreds of fragrant flowers. Through a small slit of an entrance I saw a shimmering cloud of dust, vague outlines of the familiar outpost corridors appearing through the thinning barrier.

'Thanks for distracting him with talks, gurl. I've made a hole in one of his hearts, so jump in quicker until he hobbles here.'

'What about you then?'

'Gonna be back to me bluds. I'm here as a guide, so we'd better both go home.'

'Imudon wants to kill you with his looted weapons.'

He chuckled. 'Screw him. He won't overtake me without power armour.'

'I should have purloined a trophy of his.'

'To go back to jail. Behave there.'

We shook hands, and the Raven gave me a nudge. I crawled between the trunks where the passage had grown enough to enter. The stairway to the Obsidian Tower, four friendly shapes waving at me from the other side.

'See you, bruvva!' I felt grateful but sad to part with him so soon.

I leapt into the rift and flopped to the floor when it closed behind my back.


	7. VI

Uncle and Angel helped me to get up. The walls around were black with soot, the air stank of foul smoke and warp taint. One of the corridor ends was blocked with smouldering rubbish.

'We've lost our heads looking for you,' Uncle said. 'When Lady Cichlasoma learned about what had happened, she sent a band of acolytes led by a psyker to the sewers. They found Lucia's body and a feeble trace of your presence. The traitors withdrew their forces from the passage in minutes, Gwinwer said, because the portal changed place after you'd left the outpost.'

'Did Raaf find you quickly?' Fluffster chuckled. 'That was a worthy plan.'

I looked at him with even growing suspicion recalling Imudon's revelations. He was aware of at least a part of the network and had probably brought us to Lathyrus for a purpose we were yet to learn.

'You've been to the world of lupins, Fluffster,' I said.

'Experience is needed to do important tasks. Just be patient to learn more soon.'

'An escaped agent sends you his greetings.' I winked at him.

'I'll return them in person in no time.'

There was no way to embarrass him with extra knowledge of his affairs. I shouldn't blabber too much unless I wanted him or Lord Mentor to get rid of me.

'Has the battle ended then?'

'Partially,' Uncle said. 'The agents and the Grey Knights have joined their forces to finish another bunch of daemons between the sewers and the headquarters. Lady Cichlasoma's overseeing the treatment of survivors and the oncoming destruction of the tower. Must be damn hard for her.'

He stopped and turned away from me, his lips trembling.

'Let's go now.' Sister took her Eviscerator in both hands.

'What's up then?' I noticed tears in Uncle's eyes.

'The Culexus assassin was Cichlasoma's youngest son,' she whispered into my ear. 'Uncle's memories have hit him hard.'

'Parents shouldn't bury their children.' Uncle shook his head. 'That's just wrong. Against the whole order of life.'

'They'll blow up the pavilion in a quarter of an hour. It's been tainted beyond repair.' Angel tugged me by the hand.

I took a laspistol from Uncle and headed to the undamaged section of the stairway. Walls were shivering at growing psychic noise from above. Either the lingering trace of daemonic invasion or another deadly trap set by our nemesis. My friends save Fluffster and Angel were wounded, Sister's shoulders and chest covered in raw blisters under the remains of her burnt habit, Uncle's bullet wounds bleeding through the bandages.

'Fluffster, you furry bastard.' I nudged the cricetid in the side when the others strode forward. 'That's nice to use me as a lab rat. So like a Magos. If you're a Magos at all.'

'Imudon or Raaf have quite loose tongues. Probably both. That won't change much. Wait for a little more.'

He patted me on the back and turned towards the exit. Coruscant discharges flashed on both sides. The warp stench got unbearable. A half-squad of Word Bearers appeared out of nowhere on the lower section of the shattered stairway, led by a frightening shrine-shadow, another group blocked our way out. Lamps started flickering, unable to disperse the condensing unnatural darkness.

Both shadows dashed forward, and I couldn't even raise my weapon. My arms went numb when one of the abominations grabbed me by both wrists, I doubled over at a cramp in the midriff catching for air. A traitor marine put his bolter to my head, another put me in chains. I could but watch how my friends were losing the short skirmish.

One of the marines who had captured me attacked Uncle from behind not even drawing his bolter. Uncle's unaugmented senses couldn't cope with a marine's prowess, and the traitor dropped him with a punch to the head. Sister cried out to the Emperor swinging her Eviscerator at the Word Bearer but he dodged the heavy blade and undercut her before another strike. Fluffster was attacked by three marines at once but he was reluctant to defend himself and let them tear his volkite gun away from his paws and pin him to the wall.

Only Angel was still on his feet in a violent clinch with the second shadow. Was it the Emperor's blessing or the malignant power behind his bouts of thirst and rage, but he counterattacked with beastly ferocity, his power claw leaving glowing scars on the shadow's unflesh. His eyes as red as the smouldering slits of his adversary, bloody drool dripping from his fangs, he paid no attention to the deep cuts left by the shadow's smoky blade though his armour was badly mauled and pieces of his smashed helmet had fallen off his head.

My captive friends froze up, their faces got mindless and blank when the first shadow touched them. They let the traitors gather them at the bottom of the stairway, obeying their nudges like limp puppets. Two of the Word Bearers rushed to combat the maddened Blood Angel but another shape appeared on the steps. The First Acolyte overtook the fighters with a few quiet steps and slapped Angel on the back.

Angel's grip loosened, and he tumbled over, blood running from his eyes, nose and mouth.

'My hungry sister has found her way to the place,' said the First Acolyte. 'But not for long.'

I remained the only one conscious and able to act but the sigil-engraved fetters didn't let me move. All I could do was to pace in small steps following the traitors who were leading my hypnotized companions towards the stairway. The First Acolyte put his gauntlet on my neck and leaned over to my face.

'I trusted you but you broke our little agreement. The day to repay the debt has come. Hope you remember the undervaults well and can imagine what happens to your retinue.'

Spectral maroon crystals grew in place of the missing steps, and eerie glow was oozing from the daemon-wrecked pavilion above. Led by the shadows, the traitor marines dragged the captives upstairs, to the former seer quarters now flooded by tainted aether. The walls had been burnt and shattered, and only a thin veil of warp-fume separated the room from the airless void beyond. Over the place of contemplation a fiery portal had opened as a crimson maw, filling the chamber with brimstone stench of the nightmarish shrine.

There were both Chaos Lords waiting next to the portal, surrounded by their bodyguards in legion panoplies. Imudon had donned another set of armour in plain black, without seals or even marks. Aphedron was macabrely festive, he had taken off his helmet to display his richest piercing jewelry, and a laurel crown of emeralds and wrought gold glimmered on his livid brow.

'Five minutes left, my lords.' The First Acolyte now spoke with a sovereign's superiority. 'Dismiss your warriors as they are not supposed to witness the mysteries of the great temple.'

He clapped his hands, and the marine squads vanished.

'You are welcome, my lords. Many will bow to the altars of the gods but only one will be granted permit to leave.'

I looked at Fluffster with hope. The cricetid's head had drooped to his chest, his eyes were closed. That was wrong. Utterly wrong. The one who should have known the way out. Who shouldn't have lost his spirits. A regrettable end of a large-scale operation. He had mentioned Custodes and Sisters of Silence dispatched to the shrine, but with the fickle nature of the warp they could arrive there in centuries, or not arrive at all.

The shadow shoved me into the portal, and I stepped on the rocky floor of the colossal temple nave. Absolute silence unlike before, no living souls around but a choir of sulky shadows waiting to start the canticles at the altars. Billowing brimstone smoke was coming out of large cracks in the columns, but the crimson wisps glowed even brighter through the brume.

Aphedron headed to the central altar clenching his teeth as if in great pain, Imudon followed not even looking at us. The shadows laid my acolytes face up on the rock covered in dried blood, then pushed me on my knees to face the sealed gate. A cold gauntleted hand stroked my cheek from behind.

'It is time, inquisitor.' The First Acolyte's voice was a crooning murmur. 'The gods have rejected the Dark Apostle. He is damned and does not deserve their grace. He does not deserve to continue his wretched existence any longer. That is the point where your goals come together with the will of the Four. Take the dagger and pay the price.'

'I'm bound by hands and feet, and you want me to assault a veteran space marine. Not even funny.'

'The warp-shackles will fall off once he comes closer to slit your throat. You will be able to deliver a single quick stab, but that's enough. He is your sworn foe, you have been dreaming of this very moment since the wake on the seashore. There will not be another chance since you wasted both null-daggers. If you fear Aphedron, he is not worth it. The Prince of Pleasures will not accept his offering. Invisible poison is awakening in his blood and in his soul. In no time he will be a babbling mass of tentacles condemned to be mindless cannon fodder.'

'What the heck are you at all? If I knew that beforehand...' I couldn't finish the phrase as violent vertigo made me gasp and close my eyes.

'You will learn that if you agree to pledge your loyalty and take the ultimate mark.'

'People are ready to die in inexplicable suffering to avoid it. Go find other fools.'

'You shall not hope for a quick merciful death,' he said with sadness. 'Both applicants are doomed, destined to lose their lives and souls before the rite ends.'

'If you want to kill them, do that yourself. I won't take part in the foul plans of your false gods, nor will I ever address them with a sacrifice.'

'Well, that is an honest answer. But the Anathema will not come to rescue you from my temple as He is long dead on His Throne.'

The First Acolyte walked past the ghostly choir and took his place at the entrance to the undervaults.

'The final act is to begin soon, and the way you perform will define your ultimate destiny.'

He made a sign to the shadows, and they answered with a chilling cacophony of Chaos incantations no human voice could mimick. Aphedron's once sonorous voice failed him when he tried to repeat the un-words. Imudon stood still looking down at his feet, his strained aura betrayed his fear and confusion. The gigantic gate shivered from the top to the floor, as if ready to swing open. Limp bodies of my friends lay flat on the altars as piles of rags, even their soulfires were so dim I could barely sense them.

A familiar dagger appeared in the First Acolyte's hand. To my horror, none of the two were able to see it even though they watched his every move. Another nightmare, a regular flashback of the night in the mountains. They would toss me down the cliff to the awakening. Back in the owl. I closed my eyes and opened them, struggling for every word of prayer I recalled. The seal was there, under the coat lining over my heart. 'I fear no evil, I fear no death...'

'Not too late yet.' The First Acolyte's voice whispered in my head. 'Don't be afraid of me. Get up and leave now. They won't notice.'

'Where's the catch?' I thought back. 'My retinue will remain. As well as your mark.'

'You'll hire another retinue. I won't object even if you decide to resume your career. You may choose any place in the galaxy. A serene paradise world, a big city, even Lathyrus. They'll find you at the bottom of the stairway, a sole survivor of the explosion. You've gone too far to stop now.'

'You're unlikely to give up a ready puppet.'

'The Terran machinators are to blame for your loss. They've driven you to this useless confrontation. Go away to investigate causes of poisoned candies on Uebotia and its peaceful vicinity.'

I could swear he didn't lie. He would set me free to set the hook of guilt and revenge. If I was my mentor, I could drown the memories in booze and spend the rest of my life in underhive slums running from former friends and timeless enemies. In different times than these bleak years.

'I fear no death for the Emperor comes for me,' I whispered.

'I have come for you instead.'

My knees were numb, my shackled arms cramped up. The unholy canticles had got so loud the whole colossal building resonated with the high-pitched sounds. Outside noise mixed with the hymns, outlines were shifting and blurring, the sparks on the walls started flickering.

I noticed there were less shadows than at the beginning of the ceremony. They were phasing out by one or two as the noise had turned into thunderous clangs and thuds. Soon they all vanished but the incantations were still echoing under the vault as if chanted by the shrine itself. The First Acolyte had frozen up where he stood staring off into space like a wax figure or a lingering psychic projection. I looked at the gate in overcoming half-slumber, losing the feeling of reality as everything was growing fuzzy.

A brisk movement in front brought me to my senses. Shaking on his infirm legs in jamming possessed armour, Aphedron unfurled both his tentacles and his lash for a vicious attack. Imudon parried with his crozius, pink corrosive ichor splashed over his armour leaving unpainted ceramite where it dripped down the plates. The chanting ceased. Both Chaos Lords were brawling with desperate ferocity I'd seen in junkies fighting for the last shot.

I gasped for air and felt the suppressing sorcery fade. My friends stirred, I heard Uncle's sigh and Sister's quiet sob. The traitor chiefs were trading blows as if they'd forgotten about the goal of their arrival, their armour crushed and bloodied, Imudon's crozius bent, Aphedron's lash torn in half.

'Away,' I whispered trying to get to my feet.

Angel was the first to react. He leapt down from the altar and grabbed me with one hand, Sister already in the other. Uncle sat up, only Fluffster was as lax as before. I pushed him in the side with both fists. He opened on eye.

'No need to hurry, girl. It's almost over.'

'Quicker, while they're busy pummeling each other to the mug. Dammit, you used to be a reasonable guy.'

'Get up or we'll leave you here.' Uncle tugged him by the ear.

He got up reluctantly. I pointed at the long row of doors behind the columns. Most of the exits were but illusions, I'd learned earlier, but we had to try. Dark stormy sea under winter gales. A crowded square before a palace of pink marble dissolved to grey mist when Angel put his foot on the threshold. A battlefield where xenos armies were vying over a barren rockland. Icy mountain peaks where the sky was dark blue a dozen miles over the ground.

No one was after us but I felt we had to leave in minutes before a dreadful change would overrun the world. I didn't know what had made Fluffster that slow but he was a few steps behind, looking back every few seconds. The floor shook at a tremendous blast, and Uncle slammed into a column. The following shock made every door close and open again. The wisps flickered for a moment, brimstone smoke melted.

One of the doors was shut. I recalled the divination under the black sunshine of Medrengard. The sorcerer was a liar, why should his words be trusted? Just an attempt.

'Close your eyes and do what I tell you, everyone. One step forward at my sign.'

There was no impact. When Angel stopped, I felt smells of a summer meadow and early dawn cool. I rubbed my eyes checking whether I was asleep. There was nothing disturbing or eerie. Yellow and white melilotes were swaying in the wind, blue stars of chicory strewed the grassland under the clear sky. Morning fog was fading as the sun was about to rise.

I pulled out my vox-slate and touched the screen. The remaining battery charge only enough to check the auto-location. I sighed with relief when it caught standard Imperial network. 'Calobotrya, Ribean system, Grossularean sub-sector, Botian sector, Segmentum Obscurus.' The screen went black as the battery was dying out.

'We're home, folks.' I reached for my friends, too tired to give further orders.

'You've been too hasty,' said Fluffster. 'But it doesn't matter anymore. You'll know what you should, but later. If you survive, of course.'

Uncle gave me his slate, and I typed my personal rosette code into the number field to connect to the closest Inquisition office or civil institution. The answer came in a few seconds.

'Good morning, Lady Inquisitor. The Governor's office on the line. We've redirected the news about your arrival to the system capital. Please wait while we send a helicopter to pick you up. You're seventy miles away from the main city of the southern continent. Please notify us about the exact number of your acolytes.'

By the evening we were sitting in the public office on the eastern continent trying to contact Fungata through the Governor's astropaths. The workday on Uebotia had just begun, and Fungata was probably stuck in traffic jams usual for the end of the week. The Governor, a pious and generous elderly man, was glad to receive an agent of the Throne in his domain. He asked us questions about the fights on the borders and praised the Ordo's valour when we retold him the main details of the clashes in the Abilene space.

Fungata's tone was sour as usual. She wasn't eager to have lengthy talks but surprised me with news from Lathyrus. The siege had ended a week ago with a victory of Cichlasoma's forces but a big part of the outpost had to be destroyed to rid the station of persistent daemonic influence. Moreover, there was an order through Melanotaenia Praecox and Periophtalmus that our team should stay on the planet we had found themselves on after the escape till messengers from Lord Mentor arrived. I was vexed that the intrigues had reached my superiors yet Fluffster's influence seemed to open more doors than I had thought.

A ciphered message arrived to the Governor's astropathic mailbox in half an hour, but Fluffster read it without a word with us. He commanded an immediate deletion of the file the moment he closed it.

The Governor ordered the local administration to provide a suitable dwelling for us to spend the unexpected period of idleness. I chose a small countryside house in a cottage village near the meadow where we had set foot on the planet. Far from unnecessary attention but with a few more possible clues. I didn't dare to ask Fluffster about the assault on the shrine.

Our wounds treated and bound, our armaments fixed or replaced, we embarked back to the resort area. At next sunset we were finally left alone in a wooden cottage with a neat old garden with redcurrants and white hydrangeas. It was getting dark, and windows around lit one by one as locals and tourists were returning to their houses. We sat on the verandah, Uncle started the tea and brought a bowl of berries from the garden.

'Enjoy these days and weeks,' Fluffster said. 'There won't be any rest in a while, if at all. The first big armadas have appeared in Imperial space at the Cadian Gate.'

'But at least this horrible story has come to an end,' Sister said.

'That's not the end but the beginning,' I tried to cope with overwhelming fatigue. 'The beginning of an end. You were right on that day, Fluffster, about knowing the enemy and myself.'

The striking contrast between the warm evening and his grim warning added in to the mixture of relief and emptiness that didn't leave me since the showdown at the Chaos altar. Imudon and Aphedron will remain in memories and nightmares only but there came no ease. It turned out that they weren't the root of all evil. When I recalled the First Acolyte's mark, feverish chill made me shiver.

Among the stars of a summer night there was one where two old men I respected had met their deaths in a lost game of a brawl. May the darkness be gentle to them.


	8. Epilogue

Epilogue

Imudon's crozius fell out of his hands, caught by the regrowing remains of Aphedron's whip. More tentacles were lashing out in place of severed ones, deep wounds were healing, covering with purple scales. A dozen poisoned kine-blades got stuck in Imudon's trunk and neck, his armour plates broken. Worn out to the brink of death, Imudon retreated to the closest column and fired several bolter rounds at Aphedron. His old bolter, untouched by the curse of the Four. Bolts got vaporized the moment they hit the possessed armour.

The First Acolyte didn't move but the smile on his lips wasn't coy. Nor he looked as a leering victor but as a killer ready to deal the final blow. He was listening to the sounds of battle from the outside. Was it another illusion, it didn't bother Imudon anymore. He fell to one knee at another violent cramp of the cyclopean building. A tentacle leashed out like a lightning and ripped off his pauldron, left a smoking acid burn all over his shoulder.

'I'll get what is mine by the law of the strongest.' Aphedron swung his lash, his armour about to pop at the twisted growth of his muscles.

'What the heck do you want at all?' Imudon recharged the bolter for the last time.

'And you?'

'To be frigging left alone.'

'The gods will never leave you alone, you dumbass,' Aphedron yelled.

'That's why I've hated them all along. I did the service so that they didn't disturb me. Do you know how many mutations I have?'

'Not a single one.' Aphedron stopped looking him in the eyes.

'But you're a foul mutant.'

'You sound like a damn loyalist.'

Imudon had nothing more to hide before the coming death. 'I entered the ranks of the Seventeenth to counter the menace where it's the deadliest.'

'Say the catchphrase before I kill you, poor little Alpharius. What an irony, the supreme unholy parakeet is a servant to the Carrion Lord.'

Imudon kicked out the lash while Aphedron was savouring his last jeers. He grabbed the bunch of tentacles reaching for his neck and put the bolter to Aphedron's temple.

'It's streaming through my soul... The power...' Aphedron gasped.

Imudon pulled the trigger. Purple blood and mutated brains splashed over the floor.

'I don't need brains anymore as I've been chosen by the Dark Prince.'

'I'm astonished to find out you had them at all, you animal.' Imudon grinned through the pain.

Horns and tentacles sprouted from the openings will monstrous speed. Aphedron gave out a triumphant laugh but staggered, and his smirk turned into a grimace of torment. His breastplate shattered under the pressure of bulging flesh. Smoke belched out of his mouth when he tried to gurgle something.

Imudon tried to fire the remaining rounds but the bolter jammed. Writhing and yelling, Aphedron tumbled over, now more a deformed mass of tendrils than a man. Only then did the First Acolyte leave his place of contemplation.

'The play is over, and the curtain is about to fall. You've played your role and ruined the performance like a most pathetic impostor, Imudon. You know what happens to bad puppets.' He half-smiled at the sight of Aphedron about to transform into a Chaos Spawn.

His shape vanished, and the contours of the nave started fading. Soon nothing was left around but a shaded circle of floor and a single column lit by the sickly glow of violet daemonic eyes staring from Aphedron's mutated flesh. Aphedron rolled back wriggling in agony.

'Forgive Your wayward Child,' he wheezed out.

Imudon sat to the ground leaning on the column.

'Forgive me too, if You still remember me.' He took a grenade from his belt and put his finger on the detonator.

The bulky warrior in unpainted grey armour stepped through the only remaining passage, and Shield-Captain Pelophylax raised his guardian spear, ready to strike back at any abomination left inside. The altars and gates had gone, only a small part of the rocky floor was floating amid absolute void. Custodians, Silent Sisters and Grey Knights gathered around the warrior leader scanning the remains.

Pelophylax came closer to the only column standing on the edge. An empty medicine package, a krak grenade. A lone space marine in cracked black armour sitting in the shadow behind. The stranger covered his eyes from the dazzling light but then shook his head staring at the Raptor Imperialis on the leader's plain breastplate.

'What does it mean, Lord Mentor?' Pelophylax turned back to the leader.

'The runaway agent has survived.' Lord Mentor approached the stranger but he pointed at the back part instead of a reply.

Under the crossing flashlight beams lay another marine, scantily clad in a shredded bodyglove, pieces of shattered purple ceramite scattered around. Not the Chaos Spawn they'd expected to see in the place of the traitor captain of the Third but a perfect shape like on the day Aphedron had taken his oath. Aphedron sat up, still haywired, and brushed his pale golden hair off his face with his hands. Both healthy hands.

'What's happened here, Imudon?' Lord Mentor shook the wounded survivor by the shoulder.

Aphedron answered instead, showing a row of flawless teeth in a mirthful smile.

'The Emperor protects.'

* * *

 **Volume 1 ends here. I'll start uploading Volume 2 in mid-December. As the plot is becoming more linear, every new volume will be published as a single story for the convenience of readers**


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